Do Digimon Dream of Digital Sheep?
by ellf
Summary: Six years after the D-Reaper attacked Shinjuku, things are starting to heat up in the Digital World once more. And an old friend returns to the fray as Digimon appear in his new hometown of Nerima.
1. Chapter 1

Do Digimon Dream of Digital Sheep?

By Ellf

* * *

Chapter One: Fight! Return of the Lost Tamer!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Series belong to their respective creators.

It was twilight when Ranma was able to convince the doctors to release him. He was mostly better by then. Ryouga never did much actual damage to him. A few bruises, a popped shoulder, honestly if it weren't for the Lost Boy's immense toughness, Ranma would have been worried about him instead. His rival had taken much worse than he'd given Ranma, but he'd gotten lost in the middle of the fight. Ranma only ended up at the doctor's because he'd been exhausted from blasting Ryouga with confidence.

Mokou Takabisha. That technique was not an easy one to develop, nor was it easy to consistently use. He had to _know_ he was going to win. Of course, there weren't many people who could beat him, after all, he was Ranma Saotome. He always won in the end. It was just sometimes, the cost of winning didn't seem worth the result. He'd lost friends that way. They'd won, but then his father had to drag him off… and his best friend couldn't come with him. She had to stay.

Still, he kept his memento of her in the bottom of his pack, buried deep beneath where Genma couldn't find it. It had no power now without her here, but it was still something he could remember her with.

A white fog began to roll in toward an abandoned construction site nearby. It drew his eye because the nearest body of water was two streets over. Okay. That wasn't fog. Fog didn't produce light of its own. It couldn't be what Ranma was thinking of, but if it was and he didn't investigate, he'd feel like a heel.

As soon as he stepped into the fog, the hairs on his arm stood on end, and he squinted. It was so bright. This right here is why he and the others wore sunglasses. Well, one wore goggles, but he wasn't so sure about that one's intelligence. Of course, his own was a bit debatable as well. Ranma shook his head and continued heading into what he now knew was a digital field. If a digimon was emerging here in Nerima, it was his job to deal with it. How he dealt with it depended on what was inside.

He made it to the electrical fog of the digital field and looked over the construction site. Where was the digimon? His hand twitched, reaching for a pouch that wasn't at his waist. He had no method of tracking it other than his eyes.

There! A flash of green skin dashing across the exposed I-beam. No real world creature had _green_ skin. It had to be a digimon. His eyes narrowed as the full digimon came into view. It had white hair, viciously sharp teeth, wore a loincloth and in its hand it held a bone-white club. It was an Ogremon.

Ranma's mind idly called up its statistics. Ogremon, an Adult level digimon. Ogre type. Virus attribute. It evolved from a Goblimon, and its attacks other than the bone club were a pummel ability and Tyrant Fist, an energy wave.

Maybe he could convince it to just go back to the digital world. Ranma scoffed. Like that would happen. Oh good, it looked like Ogremon just noticed it wasn't alone.

"Well, if it isn't an Ogremon. Long way from the Digital World… How you doing tonight, buddy?"

Ogremon roared in response, and if that wasn't telling about what was likely coming, nothing was. "Don't suppose I can talk you into going back to the Digital World on your own."

Ogremon's roar echoed through the construction site and it leaped upward onto another I-beam.

"Didn't think so…" Ranma ran after it.

* * *

An alarm blared through the headquarters of HYPNOS, and Mitsuo Yamaki dashed up to the central level so he could see the room's domed screen representation of the network and Tokyo. This was the first alert they'd had in a few months, and while the last one wasn't that dangerous, that didn't change the fact that whenever a digimon came through, he needed to know. He might not have been able to prevent it, but he had field agents now whose judgment he trusted. The screen's light reflected off his sunglasses and he resisted the urge to run a hand through his graying hair; instead his left hand found his zippo lighter.

"Get a lock on that wild one." He looked to his two sysops. Reika Ootori sat back to back with Megumi Onodera, each with their personal screens over their eyes and keyboards in front of them. The machine arm that their chairs sat on rotated them with a frequency that would likely have made him sick if it were him.

"Almost have it, boss." Megumi probably did too. Between both of his sysops, they had thirteen years of experience dealing with bio-emergence events. Yamaki flicked open his lighter and closed it idly as he watched them work. The last actually dangerous bio-emergence event happened five and a half years ago, when a Locomon became a runaway train on a Shinjuku track. It had been taken over by Parasimon in a plot to crack the digital world wide open so that a number of the creatures could invade. Luckily that was stopped by his field operatives.

"Locked, Yamaki." Reika Ootori, his on again, off again girlfriend and confidant spoke confidently. He had a thing for redheads, but that was neither here nor there. He needed to find out where this wild one was so he could send someone to deal with it.

"Good, do you have a location yet?"

"Working on it." Reika said as she typed. Reika and Megumi's typing had to be something like in the thousands of words per minute with that speed of operation. "Got it! It looks like it's emerging in Furinkan-cho, Nerima."

Fuck. This would have been easier if it were Shinjuku, it was nice and local, and he'd be able to send all the field agents without worrying about exposure. Matsuki was right out. Guilmon was too large to get on the train safely. Makino was out of town with her mother on business. Kitagawa had a preparatory test that he needed to focus on. Shioda had the same issue as Matsuki. That left… "Get Li on the line, send him there. Tell him to take the train. He needs to get there as soon as he can."

"Right." And Megumi dialed out. There hadn't been many bio-emergence events lately. None of them were all that dangerous either. So why did this one cause a pit in his stomach?

* * *

Feral or not, this Ogremon was smart. It had to be luring him in, there's no way a feral digimon would just not attack a human without reason. It had to be feral too. It had ignored his attempt at communication. Ranma leaped onto an I-beam after it. He could see it heading toward one of the corners… there was no way it didn't know Ranma was after him.

There! Ogremon's right hand curled into a fist and a dark aura formed around it. "TYRANT FIST!" Ranma had less than a second to drop off the I-beam and cling underneath as a wave of dark energy passed over above him, crumbling the barely finished wall behind it.

Using his momentum, he swung himself at Ogremon, foot first. "METEOR KICK!" If the digimon was going to call out its attacks, it'd only be fair for him to call his own out.

Oh. That wasn't good. Ogremon swung its bone club down and grazed Ranma, deflecting the kick into the ground nearby. Ranma flipped back to his feet and Ogremon batted him hard with the bone club, sending him downward to a lower floor. This thing was at least as tall as Tarou's cursed form, and it had good instincts. This was going to be a fun fight.

Ranma got his feet under him and cushioned his landing on the ground, it giving way just enough to slow him down. He winced, his shoulder was acting up. He really didn't need that to happen right now. Looking over the building, he could see where Ogremon was standing. All he needed was one good hit… _There!_

Ranma kicked at the wall, and a crack propagated upward and into the floor below Ogremon. It collapsed under the digimon's weight and Ranma jumped at its falling form. Ranma kicked the Ogremon midair, driving it into the wall and kicking up some dust.

"TYRANT FIST!" Ranma dropped to his back to let the energy wave pass over him. Jumping to his feet, Ranma ran into the dust cloud after Ogremon and had to dodge a bone club swipe.

"Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken!" Ranma's fists blurred as he hit the Ogremon several hundred times, taking the same strategy as fighting Ryouga. Ogremon was a big tough digimon, so several punches to the same area should work.

As the dust cleared, Ranma could see the look of surprise on the digimon's face. There was no way it was expecting a human to fight back. Not successfully, at least. Ranma kept the projection of confidence up. He'd beat this digimon, after all, Ranma Saotome never loses.

* * *

"Jenryaaaa….!" His little sister's voice rang out through the Li household as he finished up his phone call. While Shiuchun had turned thirteen a couple months back, he swore sometimes she acted like she was still seven or eight. She met him in the hallway, and on her head was the dark three horned form of Lopmon. "That was Yamaki-san wasn't it? Talking about a new digimon appearing?"

Jenrya sighed. His sister was a bit perceptive. "Yeah, he couldn't tell me what it was, just where it was emerging. " Normally the D-Ark would have picked it up, but he guessed that the digimon emerged out of range of its detection zone. This wouldn't be the first time something like that happened.

"So where'd Yamaki want us to go, Jian?" Terriermon waddled out, his ears tied into a bow. Jenrya looked at his little sister and the pristine Lopmon and back at Terriermon. Color tinged the child digimon's face as he glared at Jenrya. "I was hungry and Shiuchun said my ears needed to be out of the way!"

Of… course she did. At least Terriermon wasn't wearing make-up this time. He wasn't going to begrudge his digimon's life choices, but seriously… "Right, Princess Pretty Pants, we're headed to Nerima. We'll be taking the train, and Yamaki-san is paying."

"We're going too!" Why couldn't Shiuchun be out with one of her friends… or even Ai and Mako. They weren't that much younger than her, and he knew he saw them at her juku.

"Absolutely not. Terriermon and I are headed there alone. We'll handle Nerima." No way was he getting in trouble for letting his little sister go on a train this time of day.

"I'm older than you were when you fought digimon!" Shiuchun sounded angry.

"Yeah, but we fought them _here_ in Shinjuku. Besides Mom would kill me if you got on the train and something happened. Come on, Terriermon."

He turned to grab his D-Ark and a pack of modify cards as Terriermon jumped to his shoulder. He could hear Lopmon whispering something to his sister, but he didn't know what.

"Fine, we'll just patrol the area around here." Shiuchun caved pretty fast there. Something wasn't quite right… but he didn't have time to mull over that. A digimon was coming out on the other side of the city.

Why couldn't this happen when Ruki got back?

* * *

She jumped half a meter to the left. It had been six years since she last made this trip, and if she did this wrong, she could end up somewhere even the Sovereigns wouldn't be able to find her. Why was she trying to leave the Digital World now?

The child digimon spun around, dodging another beam. Good question. She wasn't quite sure herself why she felt the need. But the pull was coming from up ahead. And one thing was certain. She _would_follow this pull, and then she'd go find him. Instinct was a funny thing.

The real world wavered above her as light beams touched down at seemingly random intervals. Below her paws, she could see the mountains and forests of the Digital world as she ran along the grid dividing the two worlds. She just needed to get the right beam. A crevice opened up in front of her, but she couldn't stop… she wouldn't. She just needed to make a leap of faith. She would see her partner again, she knew it.

Salamon jumped. As she passed over the rapidly enlarging crevice, a beam shot down from above and struck her, forcing her to close her eyes to avoid being blind.

Her nose twitched as suddenly she was assaulted by the scent of wet grass, asphalt, and humans… and a... digimon! Her fur stood on end. There was a human near the digimon… but she could smell its hostility.

She opened her eyes and ran down the streets of the city. Salamon had to make sure the human was alright. The holy ring around her neck tingled as she ran. She would help the human! She would fight the enemy digimon! She would…. Watch the unfolding fight between a human and an Ogremon?

How was the human fighting the Ogremon? He seemed to weave around Ogremon's bone club as it attacked. His fists blurred as he attacked back. Oh, Sovereigns! Ogremon got a lucky hit… that looked like it hurt.

The human…. Ranma? She found him, and he was fighting Ogremon? He landed on his feet, and she could see the clear smirk on his face. He had to be planning something.

She should have jumped in just then, but she remembered what Ranma had said about individual fights. She wasn't going to interrupt him when he had a plan.

"TYRANT FIST!" At least she hoped he had a plan, that energy wave was heading straight for Ranma. Wait, was Ranma glowing? She almost missed it by blinking as Ranma thrust his arms out and called out his own attack.

"MOKOU TAKABISHA!" Ranma had his own digimon attacks? What did he need her for now? What was that? Well, the energy that came out of Ranma connected with the Tyrant Fist, and both exploded at the center of the battlefield.

She had to move closer so she could get a better view…

* * *

That ki blast took a lot out of him, and the longer this fight lasted, the more likely it was he was going to lose. At least Ogremon didn't look too much better than he felt. He needed to end this. Fast. Otherwise he was going to be a smear on the pavement.

Ranma put on a brave face. It was actually quite easy to be confident after the Mokou Takabisha. He always had an overabundance of the stuff anyway; it's why he chose it. But he couldn't use another one just now. No, what he had to do was shut out emotion. Empty himself. Soul of Ice.

Ranma ran up and clocked Ogremon in the jaw. "Didn't think I could do that too, did you, ugly?" After Ogremon swiped at him, he ducked and continued. "Yeah, you may be feral, but you understand me don't you?"

Ogremon roared and swung its club again, but Ranma focused on dodging, stepping back and to the right.

"So, what's wrong? I'm a human. You're an Adult Digimon. Shouldn't you be able to beat me?"

"TYRANT FIST!" That was close, but this close to him, it was easy to move with his move telegraphing.

"See, that's my theory about most digimon. You can't make it in the Digital World. So you run away." Club over the head. Sidestep, avoid. "You're a failure as a Digimon. I mean, you can't even beat one lousy human."

"STRONG MAUL!" And Amaguriken speed needed to block those swipes, using just enough force to push them around him. Five more steps.

"Come on, Ogremon. You can do better than that." Ranma ducked a horizontal swing. Just a couple more steps.

"RANMA!"

That wasn't Ogremon… but he didn't have time to think about that as he completed the spiral. Ogremon's fist was rearing back for another Tyrant Fist. "HIRYUU SHOUTEN HA!"

Ranma punched the air with a corkscrew motion, and the wind picked up. A tornado rose around him, carrying Ogremon into the sky. Soul of Ice, mouth of bullshit. Ranma backed away in case for some reason, Ogremon evolved mid-tornado.

A tiny canine blur dove at his chest and he instinctively caught it. Looking down, he saw the golden ring around its neck. "Salamon?"

"Ranma!" So it was her voice he'd heard. "I'm so glad to see you but you were fighting Ogremon and you did two digimon attacks but I hadn't heard of them before and now Ogremon is in a tornado! How?"

"Uh… those were ki attacks, something humans can do with enough training. I'm just that awesome. I mean, what other humans can say they fought an Adult digimon and won." Ranma said with a smirk. Well, he hadn't won yet, but the fight should be more or less over. Whenever the wind died down. Hopefully.

Ranma looked up at the tornado, trying to spot Ogremon. This wasn't quite lasting as long as Happosai's version, and Ranma knew it couldn't last much longer.

"I missed you so much, Ranma." Salamon nuzzled into his chest.

"Likewise. If you'd been here, Ogremon would have been data a while ago." Ranma may have been a proud martial artist, but he was an even prouder tamer. "But you're here now and that's what matters."

The tornado dissipated as the wind died down. Ranma finally could spot Ogremon's falling form. He jumped backwards, taking Salamon with him as he perched on an I-beam. The adult digimon crashed to the ground, doing a belly flop… and then a couple seconds later its bone club landed on its head before falling down next to it.

Ranma cocked his head. "Huh, well, it looks like he's knocked out and beaten, but he's not data."

"Ranma, should I?" Salamon jumped out of his hands and onto the ground.

It wasn't very honorable to hit someone while they were down, but Ranma wasn't sure they should leave an unconscious digimon out where it could wake up and cause havoc. Ranma was about to shake his head in the negative when Ogremon made the choice for him as it opened its eyes and grabbed its club.

Honed instincts kicked in, and Salamon attacked Ogremon with a glowing headbutt. "Sledge Dash!"

The accumulated damage coupled with an actual digimon attack dispersed Ogremon into bits of data. Salamon looked to Ranma, who gave a slight nod. She could absorb Ogremon's data. He'd allow it.

Ranma leaped down and scooped up his digimon once the data faded. "Let's go home, Salamon."

The canine digimon climbed up to his shoulder and nodded. "Let's go."

The familiarity came back so well after six years of being gone. It was as if a part of him was missing and now it had returned. Ranma mused over his digimon partner. He'd have to get his D-Ark out of his bag when he got home. He had reason to use it again.

A truck drove through a puddle at high speed, splashing him. "Wait, humans can evolve too?"

* * *

Calumon loved traveling on trains! Locomon were neat, and people were nice and he loved to feel the wind in his ears! And there was food! So much food! Candy! Bread! Cakes! He would eat them all! Guilmon would be jealous because he couldn't join him and play on the trains!

This train was going especially fast, and he'd been on it for a while. But there was so much to see! Lots of lights! Lots of people! Funny people! He'd have to get Juri to come along sometime! She liked seeing new things like he did! It was fun!

Oooh! That was awesome! It was a blue tornado and he saw a digimon in it!

* * *

(End chapter)

AN: Well, that's the first bit of fanfiction I've written in four years. Though this idea has been in my head for at least eight. I'm going to be focusing on this idea a bit and giving it my attention until I feel like otherwise. There's a story to tell here, and I intend on telling it.


	2. Chapter 2

Do Digimon Dream of Digital Sheep?

By Ellf

* * *

Chapter Two: Monster Friend to the Boy Girl

Disclaimer: I own nothing here. Each character belongs to its respective owner.

Jenrya stepped off the train once it got to the station at Furinkan, Nerima. The sun barely peeked over the horizon, signaling the time. If this digimon took too long to beat, he was going to have to find a place to stay for the night. Good thing it was still summer break. If he'd had to get up really early the following morning to make it to school on time, he'd have _words_ with Yamaki.

"Whatcha thinking about, Jian?" Terriermon asked from his shoulder. His partner always could tell he when he was lost in thought.

"Just that we don't have much information about the digimon that appeared, Terriermon. " He pulled out his D-Ark, and its projection displayed a pair of dots in a northward direction. He turned toward the direction, keeping his attention on the D-Ark.

"Whoa! Jian, look at that!" He followed where Terriermon was pointing. A tornado? That tightly coiled… and there weren't any clouds… He and Terriermon came to the most logical conclusion at the same time.

"The digimon!" He took off running. He'd never been to Nerima before, but he knew that if he followed the digimon signal and well, the giant blue tornado, he'd get to wherever the digimon bio-emerged. The buildings here were a little shorter than those in Shinjuku, a bit homier. Perhaps this district was a little taste of suburbia. Of course, he wasn't exactly paying attention to the buildings. He had to get to the digimon before it caused more damage.

He idly passed a decent looking girl in a red shirt and black slacks about two minutes before his D-Ark beeped. Yes. He had to be close. He looked at the D-Ark for confirmation.

_Signal Lost_…

* * *

Ranma rolled her eyes up to the sky, almost begging the ground to swallow her whole, and when it didn't, she knew she'd have to deal with a very inquisitive child digimon. Salamon had always been a curious little monster and whether she liked it or not, she'd have to answer some of the digimon's questions.

"No, Salamon, humans don't evolve the way that digimon do, at least not without a digimon partner." Ranma recalled what happened with Takato and the others. Biomerge evolution they called it. She'd never done it with Salamon; he never had the chance to. Working with Salamon and her evolutions was enough.

"Then what happened, Ranma? It _is_ you, there, right?" Salamon looked at her suspiciously. Ranma hoped that she still had the link between partners here. The curse couldn't take that away, could it?

"Yes, Salamon it's me. I've just got a curse that causes me to turn into a girl when cold water hits. Hot water turns me back… and since we're still outside, and it looks like rain, we'll have to wait until we get back home before I can turn back." Ranma patted the digimon on the head the way she always did. The movement seemed to assuage the worry she knew Salamon must be feeling, and despite her injuries, Ranma felt a bit of warmth doing it. Her best friend was with her.

"A… curse? You mean like magic… like what a Wizardmon does?" Ranma guessed she had to associate it with something familiar. Salamon was smart, like she was, but the digimon needed context to get things.

"Something like that, Salamon. Only it wasn't cast by anyone… Pop and I fell into some water which cursed us." Might as well let her know the Old Man could turn into a Panda now. It might save some grief later if it happened in front of her. "Except he doesn't turn into a girl, he turns into a panda, but not a pandamon. Just a panda."

"I know the difference between real animals and digimon, Ranma." Salamon nuzzled the crook of her neck. Thank the kami she didn't nuzzle lower. Ranma didn't think she could handle something like that.

Ranma continued walking and idly petting Salamon. She barely noticed when a guy around her age ran by with what looked to be some sort of plush on his shoulder. Of course, to be staying on when he was running that fast, it had to either be pinned or holding… on… Wait, was that another digimon? Didn't matter. She was heading home.

"Ranma, this doesn't look like the way home." Oh right. When Salamon lived with him and the Old Man, they were in an apartment in Shinjuku. Nerima was definitely a different style of area than there.

"That's because we moved since you and I last saw each other. A few times, actually. Pop and I went over to China for a bit, and now we're staying with a friend of his. He's got three daughters. If we're lucky they won't be home when we get there, so we can get up to our room and you can hide."

Salamon made a sound of assent and relaxed in her perch. Her relaxing was a good thing as they came up on the Tendou household and dojo. Of course, once it came into view and Salamon could see that they were heading in, she perked up.

"Oh! This is like Ruki's place!" To be honest, she was right. Both places had old-style Japanese architecture. The Makino household didn't have a dojo attached to it and was a bit bigger, but it bore some similarities to the Tendou household.

"Shush now, Salamon, we'll head in." Ranma didn't want anyone to find out about Salamon just yet. She needed some time to be with her partner and have it be like it used to be, her secret. Unlike before, there was very little chance of someone trying to take Salamon away from her, but she knew Nabiki might try something if she found out. Luckily, nobody seemed to be home, and with a soft mutter announcing her presence, Ranma headed upstairs to her room.

Normally on a day like today, Ranma would rush straight to the furo after getting home, partially so she'd change back into a man, and partially so she could relax the pain away. What was different this time was she had the responsibility of her partner to worry about.

"This room is mine and Pop's. That futon right there is where I sleep, you can sleep next to me, Salamon."

"Alright! It's been a long time since I slept on a cushion!" The canine digimon jumped on the futon and pushed herself under the covers, curling up. Ranma couldn't help but smile at her antics and moved over to grab her traveling backpack. She began digging through it, knowing what she sought was likely at the very bottom of the pack. It had been there for at least five years. Got it! First she pulled out a belt-buckle deck holder and flipped it open. It looked like all the cards were there, though she was disappointed that there was no blue card. Next she pulled out a digivice. Her red and black D-Ark had long ago lost power and she didn't want to try replacing its batteries. It felt like it was the same size it had been when she last used it.

A light came from the futon where Salamon was under the covers. Well, more specifically it came from the ring around Salamon's neck. Ranma instinctively held the D-Ark facing toward Salamon, and a beam of light went from the Holy Ring to the digivice. Ranma heard the tell-tale beep indicating that it was active. Once the light faded, Salamon locked eyes with Ranma, and both nodded, reaffirming their bond as partners.

And then, as one... their stomachs growled. The spell now broken, Ranma couldn't help but laugh nervously. She was shortly thereafter joined by Salamon.

"Guess we're both pretty hungry, huh? When was the last time you've eaten, Salamon?" Ranma recalled that the digital world had a few unique properties including a lack of need for food.

"Umm... I think it was when we had that Guilmon Bread before the final push against the D-Reaper." Salamon said, pondering.

"Let's head downstairs and get us both something to eat then." Ranma stood up and scooped the child digimon into her hands. "And get me some hot water."

She walked down the stairs down the hall when the smell of... something... assaulted her nose. She wasn't quite sure what to call it. There was the slightest hint of rosemary... and maybe a bit of paint thinner. Crap. Akane was cooking again.

She made a shushing motion at Salamon and tried to sneak past the dining room on the way to the door when that damnable floorboard just had to creak at the wrong moment.

"Oh, Ranma you're home! Good, dinner will be ready in just a moment! I don't know where everyone else went, so it's just you and me." Don't respond. Don't respond. If you don't respond, she can't...

"They probably left to get away from your cooking." Why the hell did you respond? Hanging her head, Ranma made her way into the dining room.

"Ranmaaa..." Akane growled dangerously from the kitchen. "I tried really hard on this meal, and you're going to eat it and like it."

"Wonderful." Ranma ground out. "I don't suppose you can get me some hot water too." If she was going to face her doom, she'd face it as a man, damnit.

"Fine, fine, the kettle's on." Good, she didn't sound too angry about that comment earlier. She was still injured from the two fights she had today. What was an upset stomach compared to the other crap?

Ranma looked to the digimon in her hands who was perfectly playing a stuffed animal. She whispered to her. "Don't worry, Salamon, we'll head out and get some other food after this."

Akane came out two minutes later, holding a plate of something that vaguely resembled sausages and rice in one hand and a kettle in the other. She poured the kettle over Ranma's head, having mastered the precise temperature necessary to turn Ranma male a while back, and her form shifted to his. She then put the plate down in front of him... and seemed to notice Salamon.

"Where'd you get that, Ranma? That's an adorable stuffed animal."

Ranma wasn't really the best of liars, so he put Salamon on the table carefully. "Oh, I found her in an abandoned lot today. She reminds me of something I had when I was younger, and I was going to go out and look for who she belonged to earlier."

"I didn't know you liked digimon, Ranma." Akane smiled.

"Yeah, it was something I got into about six years ago. I kinda just fell into it." Ranma had to stall. If he stalled long enough, the food would get cold and he could throw it out.

"Well, I'll go get some tea and come back." Akane went to head to the kitchen, and Ranma looked down at the food. To his horror, Salamon was now turning green with some of the food visibly gone from the plate.

"Ghrk..." The sound that came from Salamon was not unlike any sound he might have made when eating bad food. That wasn't paint thinner, it was castor oil. The recipe must have called for canola oil or something and Akane got the labels mixed up.

Akane spun around. Ranma could see the anger in her starting to take hold. "Ranma... You better not be making fun of my cooking..."

Admittedly, Ranma was more worried about Salamon at the moment. "Akane, what did you put in the food? Salamon's getting sick."

Akane blinked. Ranma didn't have time to worry about explaining to her. He couldn't lose Salamon now that he just got her back. He pulled out his D-Ark and deck of cards, flipping through them. There. These two cards should make a combo that would help.

"Card Slash!" Ranma swiped the first card through the D-Ark. "Hi Fortitude Plugin B!"

Almost immediately as the card's effects started to take hold, normal color began to return to Salamon's cheeks, but she wasn't out of the woods yet. Ranma prepared the second card.

"Card Slash!" Ranma's swiping here wasn't quite the swift motion he used in combat, but it did resemble it. "Speed Plugin D!"

Speeding up the metabolism, it didn't take much longer for Salamon to return to normal, and Ranma breathed a sigh of relief before turning to Akane. "You really need to pay more attention when cooking, Akane. Salamon shouldn't be eating things like that."

Akane was in a state of shock. It wasn't that she didn't know digimon were real. They were all over the news six years ago after the incident with that red blob and the giant pig whatever. It was more that she never really expected to see a real live digimon up close. Let alone hurt one with her cooking. She'd tried so hard on that dinner too, but she hurt the digimon. Idly, she noted that the food _was_ supposed to be for Ranma, and he didn't eat it, the digimon did, so it could be his fault that the digimon got sick. Still, it was her cooking. She doubted the digimon would fake being sick like Ranma and her sisters would.

She barely registered Ranma's asking to order pizza, but she slowly made her way to the kitchen and picked up the phone. She ordered the usual order that they got for the whole family, charging it to her father's credit account with the Pizza place and returned to the dining area. She blinked twice. The digimon was still there. Still moving.

Akane shook herself out of her daze upon her return. "... that stuffed digimon was real? Ranma, that's a real live Salamon right there?"

Ranma nodded. While he would have rather kept Salamon under wraps for a little while longer, he supposed it was inevitable. "Salamon, meet Akane. My uncute fiancée." Of course he couldn't help but get in that label.

Salamon let out a burp coupled with a jet of fire. "Hi, I'm Salamon, and I'm Ranma's digimon partner!"

It looked like the uncute comment pulled Akane fully out of her daze and got her focused. It was obvious that Akane was starting to get annoyed, but when Salamon spoke, a look of regret flashed on the tomboy's face. "I'm sorry Salamon, I didn't mean to hurt you."

"It's okay, it didn't taste too bad at first, but it was really really strong and gave me a tummy ache." Salamon's stomach chose that second to rumble again. "Guess I'm still hungry."

Ranma nodded. So was he, for that matter. "Well, Akane ordered something for us to eat, and when it gets here we'll eat together.

Akane nodded in confirmation. "It should be good." Ranma supposed that Akane felt a bit guilty over what happened to Salamon. She usually did when a person got hurt by her who wasn't him. And occasionally when it was him. "So, Ranma, Salamon said she was your digimon partner. That means you're a tamer, right? Why didn't we find out about this before now?"

"Well, Salamon got sent back to the Digital World after the big blow-up with the D-Reaper was done along with the other digimon. Pop and I left Shinjuku after that to continue the training journey. I heard that there was an incident in Shibuya with a Locomon not long after that point, but Pop and I were halfway to Hiroshima by then. So before today, I hadn't seen Salamon in about six years."

Salamon spoke up. "Guilmon and the others left the digital world a couple months after we got back there. Takatomon came and got them, but I didn't want to come back if you weren't there, Ranma. I knew we'd see each other again though."

Ranma smiled and patted Salamon on the head. Akane, on the other hand, looked lost. "Wait, Takatomon, Guilmon... Shinjuku was where the red blob thing happened... maybe you should start at the beginning, Ranma."

"I guess I could, Akane..." And Ranma began his story.

* * *

I guess I can tell you how Salamon and I met, Akane. Just don't interrupt too much, either of ya. To understand how I met Salamon, you probably have to understand how I started to get into digimon. I said that I sorta fell into it. That was actually a bit literal.

You see, Pop and I had moved to Shinjuku as a part of the training trip. Looking back, I suppose we could have been in Nerima or at Mom's house if Pop wanted, but apparently there were some people in Shinjuku who Pop knew and wanted me to learn from.

Anyway, the event that got me into digimon happened about two months before I met Salamon. Pop and I were practicing outside, and he hit me pretty hard so I flew out of a tree. Landing practice, he called it. Would have worked too, if I hadn't bumped into someone. I managed to slow myself down enough that neither of us got hurt, but I bumped into a girl that was around my age. She got knocked to the ground and a bunch of what she was carrying fell on the ground and spread out.

I managed to get myself to my feet and, being the caring guy I am, I looked her over.

"_This better not have been in a perverted way."_

Akane, I was **ten**.

"Are you okay?" I asked. I could have really hurt her if I hadn't slowed myself.

She nodded and asked me. "Where did you come from?"

"I uh... fell into you. I'm sorry about that, I should have tried better to dodge." Pop always did drill into me that non-martial artists shouldn't be hurt by us.

"You... fell. Into me?" The girl's voice was a little disbelieving. I got a decent look at her, she was a redhead with her hair up in a ponytail. She wore a t-shirt with a broken heart on it, and shorts and sneakers. You know, normal stuff for someone her age. "How, exactly, did you fall into me?"

"My Pop has me doing some landing training so he threw me out of a tree."

I don't think she knew how to answer that statement. Normal people don't tend to understand that training is training. Pop would never intentionally seriously hurt me. He always made sure that I was capable of pulling off whatever crazy training he wanted me to do. Well, except that one time, but it was supposed to be for a secret technique.

I helped her up at that point, and it turned out those things that spread out all over the floor were some digimon cards. Some were still sealed in booster packs, but some were loose cards. She freaked. "Oh, you idiot! Help me get these up..."

I did help her pick everything up and get it situated in her bag. That was when I first saw a Salamon card. "Huh, what's that?"

"You don't know about digimon?" The girl seemed surprised. I guess I was in the appropriate age group to get interested in the stuff, but with Pop and I moving around so much, it never came up before.

"No, what's that?"

"It means Digital Monsters, and that card in particular is a Salamon." She explained a bit about the cards to me, and I explained a little about Pop training me to her. I guess we both recognized a bit of something in each other. A drive to be the best.

We introduced ourselves to each other after that... and she let me keep the Salamon card and a booster pack. That was my first meeting with Makino Ruki, and how I got into digimon.

Over the next couple months, I pretty much devoured any and all digimon media I could get my hands on. When I wasn't training, I was checking out card shops and meeting up with kids who had digimon cards to play with them. There were a few groups at the school I went to, but none of them were as good as I knew Ruki had been. The Salamon card was important to me. Partially because it was from the first friend I had in the area. And partially because it won me a lot of games.

Of course, it was a day about two months later that I first saw a real digimon. Now digimon can only come over to our world under certain circumstances, and when they come over, there's an almost electric fog that forms. I woke up one night in the middle of the night, and I went out to our roof. I couldn't fall asleep, so I thought I'd check out how my card stats interacted with each other with the new card reader I picked up with the allowance Pop gave me.

I was going through my deck when I noticed a card that hadn't been there before. I hadn't seen it before and it didn't look quite like any of the other cards in the set. It was a blue card with a pixelated English D with a shadowed Agumon coming out of it on it. The card was slightly holographic in that the symbol faded in and out depending on the angle I looked at the card.

I swiped the card through my card reader... and the glowing fog formed around me. I could see a tear between our world and the digital one, and I saw quite a few digimon through the tear.

"He's not the queen, but he has the drive to make me stronger!" Came from a Tyrannomon.

"His strength and skill will rise immeasurably and he will be mine." I think that one was from a DemiDevimon.

"I want to protect people with you!" That was Salamon... who in a flash of golden light jumped out at me. I couldn't believe it. My very own digimon... and the others seemed to be arguing over me. But as the card reader turned into a digivice, I knew Salamon was the one for me. None of the other digimon would have worked as well as she did. Plus, she didn't argue so much as just come.

The digital field closed after that, and Salamon and I began to work together as partners. We eventually met up with the other Tamers of Shinjuku and worked with them to protect the city. I think Ruki was surprised that I managed to get a digimon partner. I know I was when I saw she had one.

* * *

This was a new place where Calumon hadn't been before. Giddiness welled up inside his little digimon heart and he knew that he had to explore. Stretching his ears out so he could fly, he took to the sky to look around.

There were so many people! He didn't know who he wanted to play with first. He could go with that man who was walking with that woman, or he could go with that woman over there. Or, ooh... ooh! There was a thing over there... He liked things! Things were neat! This thing was big, wooden... it actually looked a little spooky.

"Oh... maybe I shouldn't go in... Old temples are supposed to be haunted..." Calumon muttered to himself. Of course he wasn't scared. Why should he be scared? He was the great Calumon! Savior of the Digital World! Stopper of the D-Reaper! Savior of the Human World! He didn't need any partner to help either! But... it was night. And he could hear the creaking of the boards.

"No! I am not afraid of you, thing! I'm coming in!" Calumon charged into the old temple... thing. And once he made it ten feet in, he crashed face-first into a giant bell. Once his head stopped ringing, he took a closer look at it.

"Oh, that's a big bell, and it kinda hurts too when I run into it. Hmm... maybe I could do something..." Calumon pondered. The bell was really big. It was the size of his entire body, even. What could he do with that? Maybe he could play with it. Roll it around, hear it ring. He could possibly even use it to make music! Yes, he could be the best musician in the world! Calu Monzini! He would have loads of fans, and they'd all be chanting his name.

"Calumon! Calumon!" He'd be the best and they'd feed him ice cream and cake and hug him whenever he wanted! And they'd play with him too!

"Nyeraow! What are you doing with my bell?" Calumon blinked out of his fantasy and turned toward the source of the voice. He looked up. And up. And up. Whatever this was, it was shaped like a cat... only it had giant eyes and was about six times the size of a normal cat. It didn't smell like a digimon though. It didn't smell like much of anything.

Calumon's reaction was typical of him. "Kitty! You're a big kitty and I always knew kitties could talk, but nobody believed me. And you aren't a digimon, but just a big kitty and I want to play!"

"Play? With... you?" The cat sounded annoyed. "You interrupted my nap..."

Calumon landed and his ears pulled in. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you..."

"Nyeraow... I'm up... I guess I can play a little bit with you..." The cat sighed.

"Yay! I'm Calumon, by the way, what's your name?"

"I'm Maomolin. How about we play... hide and go seek? You hide, and I'll come find you..." The giant cat purred out.

"That sounds fun!" Calumon laughed. He loved making new friends!

The giant cat nodded and told Calumon the rules. "Okay, so I'll count to one hundred and you need to find a hiding spot _outside_ the temple. When I'm done, I'll come find you. Okay?"

Calumon nodded. He was the best at hiding! Maomoling wouldn't know what hit him.

The giant cat laid down and covered his eyes with his paws. "One... Two... Three..."

Calumon dashed outside the temple. No way would he let himself be found!

Back inside the temple, the bakeneko known as Maomoling purred out a sigh. "Why is it I can't just find a girl to be my bride rather than a hyperactive little monster? At least he's gone now..." And he faded into his bell.

* * *

Ranma woke up the following morning in his usual fashion, flying through the air out the window of the bedroom and into the yard. He managed to adjust himself in the air so that he landed on his feet, and a few seconds later, Salamon landed next to him.

"Morning, Pop!" Ranma called as his father jumped out the window after him. He did it as cheerfully as possible as he could tell his father had a hangover.

"Time for practice, boy!" Genma leapt into the air, and Ranma joined, a smile decorating his face as he knew his father probably hadn't noticed Salamon there yet. The two exchanged blows before landing on opposite sides of the koi pond, and Salamon, out of her daze moved to watch.

It took two more volleys of blows before Salamon received a subtle nod from Ranma and she joined the fray, cutting off Genma mid-leap. "SLEDGE DASH!"

Genma's momentum was redirected entirely by the headbutt and he ended up landing face-first in the koi pond. A panda emerged and gave a little panda roar before it seemed to notice what had hit him.

"Oh, that's so cool, Ranma!" Salamon squeed as she walked up to the panda. "It's like he evolved into a Pandamon!"

"Growf!" Genma held up a sign. [Salamon?] He flipped it over. [Boy! Why didn't you tell me Salamon was back?]

Ranma grinned as he picked up his partner. "You were out late last night, Pop, and you didn't notice her this morning. You think I'm going to give up an advantage like that?"

Ranma ignored the sign that Genma was now displaying about how he was a disgraceful son for keeping Salamon from him and headed in.

Breakfast was already on the table and at Ranma's usual spot there was a second bowl of food next to his.

"I thought that Salamon-chan could have her own place at the table." Kasumi said as Ranma walked in.

Having long given up finding out how Kasumi found out things Ranma nodded and placed Salamon down next to him. Salamon, to her credit, managed to remember the correct thing to say before diving face-first into eating.

"Thanks for that, Kasumi." Ranma began his own eating as Genma came to the table.

"So Ranma, what are your plans for today?" Nabiki seemed to be eying Salamon. He'd have to keep an eye on that. He didn't trust the middle sister at all.

"I'm going to show Salamon around town. If she's going to be living with us here, she needs to know the city." Ranma answered.

Nabiki smirked. "Well, having a digimon around should be... interesting, Ranma."

And this was one reason he wanted to keep Salamon secret for a while. Nabiki would likely have information out to everyone who would listen by the end of the day.

Akane smiled at Salamon. "You keep Ranma out of trouble, Salamon."

Salamon, having finished her food, nodded. "Kay! So, Ranma, do you think we'll find any other digimon?"

"I... If you asked me yesterday morning, Salamon, I'd say all we'd have to worry about is whether Ryouga managed to find his way back here soon enough. However, after that Ogremon appeared last night... Maybe. We might see more digimon."

"Ogremon?" Nabiki perked up. "There's more than just Salamon in Nerima?"

Ranma nodded. "If you see any glowing fog, that usually means a digimon's appearing. If you see that, you should probably get away. Digimon that come out of the digital world aren't always the most rational when they appear."

Ranma continued, "And fighting them if they're a higher form than child is dangerous. I think even the Old Ghoul or the Old Pervert would have trouble with an Adult or higher. Depends on the Adult though."

Salamon perked up. "Old ghoul? What's a ghoul?"

"Kind of like a Bakemon, Salamon." Ranma idly commented.

"Ranma! That's not very nice... Even if she is old..." Akane trailed off. "You shouldn't teach her that kind of thing."

Ranma scooped Salamon into his arms. "I'll teach her what I want, she's my partner. Besides, she's smarter than she acts."

Salamon climbed up to Ranma's shoulder and then onto the top of his head, plopping herself down so she could be comfortable.

Ranma blinked as a camera flashed. "Hey!"

"Have to preserve this moment for posterity. Also it might be worth a few yen." Nabiki said with a smirk.

Soun finally seemed to have broken out of his likely hangover-induced stupor. "Ranma, you should take Akane with you."

Akane shook her head. "I'm sorry Daddy, but I have plans with Yuka and Sayuri today. We're heading to the mall."

Ranma nodded. "I'll see you all later." He turned and headed out. Now Ranma knew that Salamon had seen much of Shinjuku during the time where they all had lived there. So she didn't really need things pointed out that could be seen from Shinjuku as well as Nerima, just from a different angle. She needed to see the ward itself. Ranma took to the fence so that Salamon would have a higher vantage point, and he idly noted something flying across the roof to the side.

Since it didn't seem to be coming after him, Ranma didn't give it further thought.

"Where are we going, Ranma?" Salamon hadn't moved from her perch on his head.

"Well, I figured the best place to start might be the zoo. You can see a lot of real world animals which some digimon seem to also look like." Most people walking by Ranma didn't tend to give the martial artist a second look, even when he was speaking to the digimon on his head. Nerima had become slightly desensitized to such things.

"That sounds fun..." Salamon murmured.

"It's coming from over there, Jian!" Ranma blinked. That voice sounded familiar.

"I'm coming, I'm coming... you know you're not supposed to scare people..." That voice also was a tad familiar, but Ranma couldn't quite place it.

"Ah, who's scared? The people around here seem a lot more relaxed than back home. They even offered me breakfast at the hotel, Jian!" Ranma looked toward the voice's source, and it took a bit before it came into view, even with his bouncing, Terriermon was still a small digimon.

The Terriermon was with a human. His tamer, obviously. Ranma felt he should recognize this person, maybe even remember a name, but it wasn't coming to him. The tamer paused. "A Salamon and a guy standing on the fence... Saotome Ranma? That you?"

* * *

Jenrya never found that wild digimon the previous night, and he'd reported as such to Yamaki. Neither he nor Terriermon knew what that meant. Did the digimon just go back to the digital world on its own, or did someone handle it? Regardless, Yamaki had encouraged the pair to stay in Nerima for a couple nights, setting them up with a nice hotel and a stipend. If anything, Jenrya was glad to have a little bit of a vacation from Shinjuku, though Terriermon seemed a bit sad that he couldn't play with either Lopmon or Shiuchon.

That morning, Jenrya and his partner set out to find out whatever dealt with the digimon or to find it or something. He wasn't quite sure why Yamaki had him doing this. It _had been_ a bit slow recently; maybe this was just Yamaki worrying over nothing.

"Come on, Jian... Let's take a look around! I haven't seen this part of the city before and I don't think you have either!" Terriermon certainly seemed enthusiastic. Of course, with school out for summer break, the little guy was just happy to be around him.

"All right, all right. Let's go, Terriermon." He was rewarded a few seconds later by a weight on his shoulder, indicating his digimon had joined him, and he headed out. The hotel was near a few restaurants that seemed to be preparing for their lunch rush early in the morning. There was a ramen place, the Nekohanten, a barbecue place, Kim Chung's, a sushi place, named of all things, Ichiban, and there was an okonomiyaki place, Okonomiyaki Ucchan's. Maybe he'd be able to get something at once of these places with the money that Yamaki sent him.

After they got past the restaurants, Terriermon perked up. It wasn't quite the way he did it when there was a feral digimon that he was sensing. His fur remained unruffled by whatever instinct that he had. "Jian, there's a digimon nearby."

Jenrya paused for a second. It wasn't that he doubted his partner, he'd been with him too long to doubt such instincts, but just because there was a digimon nearby didn't mean much unless they found it. "Are you sure it's not just indigestion?" Jenrya joked.

Terriermon leaped to the ground and glared at him. "Come on, Jian! It's this way! And it's not Calumon or Guilmon either!"

Terriermon headed off through the streets. Jenrya, without any better ideas, had to follow his partner if only to keep him out of trouble. There were a decent amount of people around as they were running through the streets, and Jenrya idly wondered why they weren't reacting to Terriermon. Yeah, people knew digimon were real and had for the past six years, but a digimon still wasn't something normal to see. Why these people weren't even batting an eye confused him.

"Hold up, Terriermon! We don't even know where we're going!"

"Momentai, Jian! It's definitely this way, I can feel it!" Terriermon was almost bouncing at this point. He was dashing through the crowd at this point. "It's coming from over there, Jian!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming... you know you're not supposed to scare people..." Jenrya followed, and he could see past the people he was weaving through toward the fence. On the fence was a guy around his age dressed in a red Chinese shirt and black pants tied off at the bottom. On top of the guy's head was... was that a Salamon?

"Ah, who's scared? The people around here seem a lot more relaxed than back home. They even offered me breakfast at the hotel, Jian!" Jenrya just shook his head as he continued forward.

"A Salamon and a guy standing on a fence..." This reminded him of someone. Who did he know that was partnered with a Salamon? Oh he hadn't seen him in a while! "Saotome Ranma? That you?"

"Yeah, that's me..." Ranma seemed to not quite recognize him, but it was now fairly clear that he had a D-Ark. "And you are... hmm... Henrii... no, ah! Li Jenrya! Been a long while."

Ranma leaped off the fence, and after that, Salamon jumped down off his head. "Terriermon! Hi!"

Jenrya smiled as Salamon tackled Terriermon. "Yeah, it's been a long time, Ranma. Haven't seen you since you left town after the D-Reaper."

"Yeah, well, Pop and I had to get back on our training journey. We ended up doing quite a bit after that. I see you managed to get Terriermon back too, when did that happen?"

"Well, about a month after you left, Takato managed to find his way back into the Digital World and came back with all our partners. Ryo ended up joining Cyberdramon back there, but everyone else came back here."

"That's... actually pretty neat... Salamon didn't show up till last night, herself."

Huh. He wondered if last night Salamon was the Wild One that Yamaki was tracking. "Oh?"

"Yeah, she ended up helping me finish off an Ogremon. Guy wasn't that tough, but I don't know if humans can actually disperse digimon."

Salamon perked up. "Yeah, Ranma made a tornado! It was **awesome**. I wanna make a tornado too, Ranma. Next time we fight can you swipe a card that lets me?"

Ranma chuckled. "Sure Salamon, I think I might have a card or two that can help with that."

Wait. Tornado. Ranma made a tornado. How the hell did he make a tornado? Maybe Salamon was mistaken. Of course, he'd heard of crazy things that supposedly could be done with martial arts, but that was something right out of a manga. "Tornado? Ranma, was that you last night and not a digimon?"

Ranma scratched the back of his head, below his pigtail and laughed. "Yeah... It was a martial arts technique I learned. One of my most special attacks. Hey, you're a martial artist too, right? Maybe we could spar later."

Jenrya blanched a little. While he did practice Tai Chi, without biomerging with Terriermon, he wasn't too sure he'd be able to effectively use it against someone who had been practicing crazy martial arts that let you produce tornadoes. "Yeah, I've kept up my Tai Chi practice."

Ranma smiled. "Ah yeah, I remember MegaGargomon using that against the big phoenix jerk. That was impressive back then. Should be interesting to see how well you do without digimon help."

That's what he was afraid of... "Momentai, Jian. Ranma probably won't hurt you! He's probably got a lot of control if what Salamon was saying is true. "

Before Jenrya could respond, his cell phone rang. He flipped it open. "Moshi moshi. Li here."

"Li-kun, this is Ootori Reika. We have two Wild Ones moving in on your position. They're both displaying power levels consistent with Adult digimon bordering on Perfect. They should bio-emerge soon."

"Right, let Yamaki know that Terriermon and I are on it with the person who dealt with Ogremon last night. He might remember Saotome Ranma."

Ranma seemed to be paying attention to the phone call and subtly looking around. Jenrya pulled his sunglasses from his pocket to put them on before the digital field formed.

"Will do. Be careful, Li-kun. HYPNOS out." Ootori-san cut out without giving him the chance to say goodbye. He put his phone away.

"So, two digimon incoming, right?" Damn, Ranma's ears must be good or he had that turned up too loud. Jenrya nodded. "Well, we'll just have to make sure that they're handled."

The hairs on Jenrya's arms began to stick up and he could almost taste the static charge on the air. Ootori-san wasn't kidding when they said that they were closing on them. "Ranma, you have anything to cover your eyes?"

"Not yet, my old sunglasses broke a while ago." Ranma had already gripped his D-Ark, much the same as Jenrya.

"Well, Terriermon and I should be able to handle this, you don't have to get involved."

Ranma looked at him like he was nuts and then a manhole burst upwards as the digital field erupted from both it and the water. "Terriermon..."

"Momentai. I've got them..."

He glanced down at his D-Ark, and it displayed the first digimon's data. "Ranma, that's a DarkTyrannomon, we'll have to be careful of its Fire Blast and Iron Tail..."

Ranma gave an affirmative sound. "And in the water's a Seadramon. That's going to be a pain to deal with."

"Don't worry about it, Terriermon and I have this. Biomerge Activate!" Jenrya thrust out his digivice as he called out the activation phrase.

Terriermon jumped up in preparation... "Terriermon shinka... or not..."

Wait... what? Why weren't they together right then? Jenrya tried again. "Biomerge Activate!"

"Terriermon ... aww forget it..." Terriermon sounded disappointed.

"Jenrya, what's wrong?"

Jenrya looked at his D-Ark as he heard the roars of both DarkTyrannomon and Seadramon echoing through the area. The readout said, "Biomerge Failure."

Both Adult Digimon roared again. "It's not working... Terriermon and I can't biomerge..." Why was this happening? Why now? What were they going to do?

* * *

Author's Notes: Well, that was a fun chapter to write. Little bit of a pain in some areas, but overall I think it flowed pretty well. There's a tad bit of foreshadowing here, but I'm not sure anyone will catch it. Now, I'm not going to commission this, and I don't have the skill, but I'd love to see a fanart of Ranma mid card slash animation. Either form would work, but what I'm envisioning in my head involves something like a vertical split showing both male and female half in the relative same position. Eh... mind things.


	3. Chapter 3

Do Digimon Dream of Digital Sheep?

By Ellf

* * *

Chapter Three: Evolution. Not a myth.

Disclaimer: Namco Bandai owns Digimon, Rumiko Takahashi created Ranma.

Jenrya didn't know what to do just yet. A DarkTyrannomon and a Seadramon were right there in front of him and he couldn't biomerge with Terriermon. Then it hit him.

"You okay there, Jenrya?" Ranma's voice called from out of the fog, breaking into his contemplation a bit, but that was okay. He knew what he needed to do now.

Jenrya nodded. "I've got this, Ranma." He reached into his deck holder. He hadn't expected to need this when he left the house, but he'd grabbed it anyway. A simple card slash of a Blue Card and Rapidmon would be here to take out these two fairly easily. He didn't even look at the card he pulled out of the holder. He wouldn't need to. All he had to do was focus on it. His hopes. His dreams. His wishes would generate a blue card for him and together with Terriermon he'd be able to take out the enemy digimon.

He focused and after what he deemed a sufficient amount of time, he swiped. "Card Slash! Matrix Evolution Activate!"

He looked to Terriermon, expecting to see him evolve. "Terriermon shinka... or not..." And now to the card in his hand. It was a Speed Plugin D. It wasn't a Blue Card. The hell?

Jenrya didn't have much time to question as it looked like DarkTyrannomon noticed them. "That's... not good."

"Salamon, here!" Jenrya lost his breath as his feet left the ground and he was moving backwards at a speed that he only felt before as MegaGargomon.

"FIRE BLAST!" Jenrya felt the heat as he continued flying backwards out of the reach of the digimon's attack. Apparently Ranma had grabbed him and Terriermon, carrying them away.

"What happened, Jenrya?" Ranma asked after he placed the half-Chinese boy on a wall. "Why isn't Rapidmon out and kicking ass?"

"I don't know, I can't get the Blue Card!" Jenrya gave the only answer he could. He knew Ranma probably wouldn't have thought to try himself; Salamon's Perfect Form ate a lot of the digimon's energy.

"Well I guess we do this the old fashioned way. You and Terriermon handle Seadramon; we'll deal with big, black and toothy." Ranma grinned as he spoke. It looked like the boy was having some fun. Of course, Salamon had a grin on her face as well. Ranma put Terriermon down near Jenrya and jumped off.

Jenrya turned to his partner. "What do you think, Terriermon, think we can handle a Seadramon without you evolving?"

"Momentai. You and me, Jian, we're unbeatable together. It doesn't matter if we can't become MegaGargomon or I can't evolve to Rapidmon or even if I can't evolve period. I'll win because you're with me and you'll win because I'm with you." Terriermon spoke with quite a bit of confidence and Jenrya couldn't help but smile.

"Then let's show this Seadramon what we can do, shall we?" Jenrya said as he dug through his deck box for appropriate cards. "We beat the Devas, we beat the D-Reaper; there's nothing we can't face together."

They were ready.

* * *

The water of the canal had frozen over, Seadramon's work, no doubt. This wasn't a bad thing as it let Terriermon have some sort of solid land to fight off of that wasn't the fence. Jenrya considered. Seadramon had a few ice related breath powers, but it was a water based digimon. He pulled out a few cards from his pack as he and Terriermon approached. A smile came to his face, perfect.

"Go, Terriermon!" Terriermon leaped from Jenrya's shoulder onto the frozen-over canal. Seadramon's roar echoed through the area and Jenrya shook his head as Terriermon found his footing.

"This guy is pretty big, Jian..." Terriermon smirked. "But I can take him. Petit Twister!" Terriermon rapidly spun around forming a tornado which slammed into Seadramon's mighty form. Terriermon came out of the attack mid-air to avoid Seadramon snapping at him.

"ICE ARROW!" Terriermon barely had time to dodge the incoming ice shard formed from the serpent digimon's breath.

"Any time you're ready, Jian!" Terriermon had to dodge another two ice shards. "Bunny Blast!" Jumping again, Terriermon pelted the Adult with shots of superheated air.

Jenrya wasn't idle while his digimon did battle. He had two cards at the ready. He swiped the first. "Card Slash! Zudomon: Thor's Hammer!"

The gigantic weapon formed in Terriermon's hands and he shouldered it. Seadramon glared at Terriermon before blowing out a blast of cold.

"Card Slash! WarGreymon Brave Shield!" Jenrya swiped another card and then prepared for another. "Card Slash! Strength Plug-in C! Card Slash! Speed Plug-in H!"

A giant golden shield formed in front of Terriermon, blocking the incoming blast of cold before it fell forward in front of him. Terriermon jumped and wrapped his ears around the handle for the hammer, lifting it higher. The child digimon blurred and brought the hammer down onto the ice around the digimon.

"THOR'S HAMMER!" Terriermon cried out and a jolt of electricity went through the water, arcing along the adult digimon's body. Terriermon did a follow up swing, turning the hammer and slamming it into Seadramon's head plate. The plate cracked on impact, and the hammer lost energy, dissipating into bits of data. "BUNNY BLAST!"

Terriermon followed up by blasting the Adult in the cracked plate, destabilizing the data bonds holding it together. Seadramon exploded into bits of data seconds later, and Terriermon prepared to download it.

"Wait, Terriermon. Something's not right... Don't download it!" Jenrya looked at his D-Arc. Why hadn't the signal for Seadramon faded yet? And what was that extra signal in the data? The flash of darkness he saw there? It didn't make sense.

"Momentai, Jian, it'll just take a minute!" Terriermon prepared to download.

"Terriermon, come here, now!" Jenrya forcefully stated and the digimon acquiesced. It took a few seconds, but Terriermon returned to his side. "Look, Terriermon!"

The data hadn't yet faded, and it didn't look like normal digimon data bits. There was something off about it. Darker. With a hint of redness. Jenrya didn't know what to make of it.

"Get ready, Terriermon. I'm not sure the fight's over just yet..."

* * *

Ranma and Salamon stood on a wall near the DarkTyrannomon. Well, to be more accurate, Ranma stood and Salamon stood on his shoulder. The digital field obfuscated their presence for the moment, but that could change any second. Ranma knew that Jenrya and Terriermon had engaged.

"Salamon, let's go!" Ranma leaped into the air, and Salamon pushed off of Ranma's shoulder to get started.

"SLEDGE DASH!" Salamon slammed into DarkTyrannomon's chin, driving it upward and kept going while Ranma posed confidently. His ki flared upward and he grinned.

"MOKOU TAKABISHA!" He launched a ball of energy at the digimon's exposed stomach to follow up Salamon's attack and then at Amaguriken speeds flipped open his deck box. He pulled out eight cards and fanned them out. "No... no... no... Yes... There we go."

Salamon landed and stared up at the Adult Digimon. It looked angry. "FIRE BLAST!" Salamon dashed to the side, avoiding the incoming jet of flame. She barely escaped it, feeling the heat of the blast warming her tail.

Sitting down, Salamon cocked her head back. "Puppy HOWLING!" Her sound based attack cut through the fog. DarkTyrannomon roared in pain. Salamon couldn't help but glance back to her tamer as she held the howl.

Ranma nodded and prepared the cards to modify Salamon. "CARD SLASH! Speed plug-in F!" He glanced at Salamon before prepping the next card. "CARD SLASH! Frigimon: Ice Breath!"

"IRON TAIL!" DarkTyrannomon slammed its tail down where Salamon had been standing up until the cards kicked in. Salamon blurred into action, jumping out of the way of the incoming tail and then using her newfound speed to jump on top of it. She ran up the length of the tail and pushed off of it once she was on his back.

"ICE BREATH!" A blast of absolute zero air left Salamon's mouth, leaving a layer of ice on the DarkTyrannomon's neck. Salamon then used its speed to dash at the ice layer.

Ranma flipped out another card and swiped it. "CARD SLASH! Strength Plug-in G!" Ranma clipped his D-Ark at his waist. "Come on, Salamon, let's finish it!"

Ranma ran up to the Adult digimon, dodging another incoming jet of flame and jumped up. He reared back his fists, and Salamon did the same with her paws.

"Kachuu Tenshin Amaguriken!"

"Petit Punch!" Two sets of fists impacted the Adult digimon at the same time and the same speed. Tamer and digimon partner worked together, uniting their intent and attack. The ice shattered under the multiple impacts. DarkTyrannomon blurred slightly as its data destabilized under the pressure.

"Now, Salamon!" Ranma leaped back to the ground and Salamon did the same. He leaped foot first at the oversized reptile. "METEOR KICK!"

"SLEDGE DASH!" Once again, tamer and partner in unison slammed into the digimon. A ki-powered kick and a data-powered headbutt powered through, destabilizing the data further. DarkTyrannomon clawed at Ranma just before the hit, slashing open his shirt and leaving scratches on his chest. But it didn't matter, as DarkTyrannomon exploded into data.

Salamon prepared to download the data, but stopped as she heard an alarm from Ranma's waist. Ranma looked at his digivice to see what the issue was. "Wait, Salamon!"

The data was the wrong color... Something was wrong. Salamon returned to Ranma's side and he climbed to his feet, moving backwards. "What's wrong...? Ranma you're hurt!"

"I'll be fine, Salamon... But something's not right here." Ranma stepped further back, picking up Salamon climbed up onto Ranma's shoulder. The data hadn't dissipated yet.

DARK JOGRESS EVOLUTION

Jenrya and Terriermon had finished their fight around the same time as Ranma and Salamon and now the resultant data fields were coalescing into a single form. A dark aura came from the evolving digimon, its evil permeating down to Ranma's bones. The digimon's base form resembled that of the DarkTyrannomon it was evolving from in shape, but there was no skin, no muscle exposed. All that was there was a skeleton made up of a slightly charred bone. The top of the skull resembled Seadramon's skull-cap, but its maw was all sharpened Tyrannomon teeth, slightly decayed. Its eyes, if one could call them that, were glowing red flames burning in the hollow eye sockets of the skull, and its chest cavity was open down the middle, revealing a darkly glowing, pulsing sack of digital organs. Its digital core vaguely resembled a beating heart.

"SKULLTYRANNOMON!" The digimon roared out its name as it finished forming. It had to be at least a Perfect.

Ranma looked up at the new form and could only utter two words. "Oh... crap."

* * *

The alarms inside the HYPNOS control room blared loudly. The operator chair spun around swiftly and the two operators typed quickly at their terminals.

Yamaki flicked open the zippo lighter at his side and closed it as he watched, giving his subordinates a little time to collect themselves as he looked at the screen. Error messages lit up all around where the two wild ones had emerged earlier. The wild ones had been dealt with, he'd thought for a second, but something wasn't right here.

"Reika, tell me you and Megumi have something." Yamaki ordered. He wasn't nervous. Things were under control. Yamaki flicked open the lighter again.

"Near as we can tell, the two Wild Ones have combined into a single being. We can't contact Li-kun's cell, but the data we're getting off of it is brand new." Reika answered.

Yamaki felt like going outside and smoking a cigarette. "What data _have_ you gotten on it?"

Megumi spoke up. "It's an undiscovered digimon, not one that has been designed or seen in the card game. It is outputting the energy signature of a Virus-Type Perfect level digimon. The Virus-Type energy is almost pure though... almost a dark energy. We can't tell much more as there seems to be a Faraday Cage-like effect forming in the digital field."

Yamaki swore under his breath. "Keep an eye on things you two." He adjusted his coat and put his lighter in his pocket.

"Where are you going, Mitsuo?" Reika moved her visor up and looked at him.

"I'm heading to Nerima, and I'm grabbing the prototype on my way."

"It's untested. It'll be dangerous..." Reika sounded worried.

Yamaki Mitsuo put on a pair of sunglasses from his pocket. "It's dangerous for those kids every time we send them out. I'll call when I get there."

* * *

Calumon really was the best at hide and seek. Maomaolin...mon... hadn't found him yet! He'd been in this hiding place for hours and hours and hours and hours! Though... he was starting to get bored.

"Maybe he's not going to find me after all?" Well that was okay. Calumon poked his head up out of his hiding space, taking to the air. All he had to do was go back to where the ghost kitty was and... Wait... where was that exactly?

Calumon looked over the sea of buildings. There were so many of them and they all looked alike... Oh... that looked weird. Calumon flew closer to a big dark data cloud. He landed on a rooftop nearby.

"Oh... that looks scary... I hope whoever's in there is friendly..."

* * *

"Ground Zero Buster!" A dark jet of energy left the SkullTyrannomon's mouth and it kept the beam going along a line leading up to Ranma. Everything that the beam struck instantly turned into data and disappeared.

Ranma jumped backwards with Salamon, and Jenrya ran up with Terriermon in tow.

"What the hell is that thing?" Jenrya pulled up his D-Ark and looked at the screen. [No data available.] "Great, just great."

"Whatever it is, it did a Jogress between DarkTyrannomon and Seadramon. There's no way it's less than a Perfect." Ranma looked to Salamon. "Looks like you're going to have to evolve."

Terriermon stepped forward. "Me too, Jian! Even if we can't go Perfect, we have to do _something_."

Both tamers nodded and fished a card out of their pockets. In unison, they slashed their cards through their respective D-Arks. "CARD SLASH! Super Evolution Plug-In S!"

A buzzing sound came from the digivices after that. [No Carrier]

"That... can't be good." Ranma stated the obvious. The area darkened further and the ground shook as the massive skeletal reptile came closer.

"GROUND ZERO BUSTER KAI!" No more than a meter away a line was drawn with a beam of dark energy, causing an explosion of rubble and data. The shockwave knocked the group back some. Ranma shielded Salamon with his body as he slammed into some piping. Cold water jetted from the pipes, hitting Ranma activating the curse. Ranma didn't have time to think about that as SkullTyrannomon clawed at the place she would have been at if she hadn't moved.

Ranma picked up Jenrya and Terriermon, and leaped to a nearby building's roof. "We need to figure out what to do, that thing's dangerous."

Jenrya looked over the girl who was wearing Ranma's clothes and had Salamon with her. "Who are you, exactly?"

"Worry about that later, Jenrya. Perfect level dark digimon to worry about now." Ranma stared down the perfect. She wasn't feeling confident enough for a Mokou Takabisha, and the situation wasn't dire enough yet for her to be depressed enough for a Shishi Hokodan. She didn't want to send Salamon after it without some major card upgrades, and she wasn't certain she could evaluate this well enough. Why didn't the Evolution work?

Ranma stood in a fighting stance and abruptly winced and fell to one knee.

"Ranma!" Salamon nuzzled her. Ranma must have aggravated the wound that DarkTyrannomon gave her.

"Don't worry about me, Salamon..." Ranma said. She glanced over at Jenrya and Terriermon, the former trying to reassure the latter. She looked at the digital field around the area... it was darker than usual. An evil aura. The only way to counter it would be... That was it!

Unfortunately, the building chose that moment to collapse inward. Ranma, thinking quickly grabbed the digimon and Jenrya, shielding them from both the fall and as much of the debris as she could. The damage she took while doing so combined with her previous injuries took its toll and she passed out.

"Ranma! Please be okay! Are you okay?" It was no use, Salamon couldn't wake her tamer. She turned to Jenrya and Terriermon. "This thing hurt Ranma. It's going down. Are you with me, Terriermon?"

Terriermon leaped down after checking on Jenrya. "Yeah, we can handle it!"

Jenrya shook his head. "No, you can't go against a perfect like that, are you crazy?"

"Momentai, Jian. You're always with me anyway!" Salamon ran out of the building followed by Terriermon.

* * *

Salamon had a plan. It was probably a stupid plan, but it was a plan. She was a student of the Saotome School of Anything Goes for a reason. Uncle Genma trained her just as hard as he trained Ranma during the time she was with him.

"Terriermon, follow my lead." Salamon hissed to her fellow child digimon. When she saw him nod, she smirked and ran up into SkullTyrannomon's view. "Hey! Ugly!"

The skeletal digimon looked down at her, red eyes boring through her skull.

"Yeah that's right, I'm talking to you. You big pile of bony boniness!" Salamon knew she had his attention... but Terriermon tapped her on the shoulder.

"What are you doing?" He hissed out. Obviously he didn't get her plan. That was okay.

"I told you, follow my lead..." Salamon hissed out to Terriermon. "I don't care what you are, you lame rip-off of SkullGreymon! We beat you before when you were an adult and we'll beat you again! It doesn't matter that we're child level. "

SkullTyrannomon just continued staring. Good. It seemed confused. Maybe a little angry.

"Oh and before you say I had help... remember I had help from a _human_, something you should never expect to get. But see, I don't need my Tamer to beat you. Neither of us needs our tamers. You're just a big fat failure..."

SkullTyrannomon roared loudly. "Foolish little thing, how do you plan on beating me?"

Hook. "Oh, we've both been trained in _human_ martial arts by our Tamers. See we can trust them and rely on them. What do you trust and rely on? Your loneliness?"

SkullTyrannomon snorted out a jet of flame. "Your so-called human abilities will not help you against me. I shall consume your data... and then this town..."

Line. "Well, I bet I can take you with a single attack! My one attack that will beat you completely!"

"Oh yes, little one? Perhaps I should give you a free shot then if you're so confident." SkullTyrannomon's voice dripped with patronization.

Sinker. "Remember, Terriermon, follow my lead..." Salamon hissed out to her fellow digimon before turning toward the SkullTyrannomon and building up energy in her skull quite visibly. "SAOTOME SCHOOL OF ANYTHING GOES MARTIAL ARTS FINAL ATTACK!"

SkullTyrannomon winced slightly... Maybe it shouldn't have given the child a free hit?

"FAST BREAK!" Salamon and Terriermon dashed off away from the Perfect and away from the collapsed building.

SkullTyrannomon roared at the insult and chased after them.

* * *

Jenrya hadn't been in this situation before. While his life had been put on the line when facing digimon, it was rarely this close, and the lack of ability to evolve _at all_ scared him. Without the ability to at least have Terriermon evolve to his Adult form, there was little that could be done other than what the two Child digimon were doing.

He couldn't help but watch in shock when he saw Salamon's bold idea. Insult the Perfect and then run away. That seemed like a great plan, but he saw the logic in it. Salamon was able to lead SkullTyrannomon away from the building that way. He just hoped that it would be possible to think of a plan to beat the dark digimon before he caught up. Ranma would have thought of something by now. Ruki would have too. Takato would have just done something crazy and had it work, but Jenrya always needed to plan meticulously.

He looked at the unconscious body at his feet. The girl was shorter than Ranma, but she was wearing the same clothes as him and had similar physical prowess. He supposed the girl could be Ranma's sister with how she resembled the pig-tailed boy. They shared the same color hair and eyes. However, there were two issues with that supposition. Issue one was that she seemed to appear out of nowhere and Ranma was gone. Issue two was that as far as he knew, Ranma was an only child. Salamon had called the girl Ranma and reacted as if she was Ranma. Digimon knew their tamers. That meant the girl _had_ to be Ranma. Why she was now a girl, he didn't know. It might have something to do with his link to his digimon partner. Ranma, Juri, and Ai were the only tamers to have digimon which, as much as Renamon denied it, had opposite genders. Maybe if Leomon survived, Juri would have turned into a man and been able to biomerge with him. As for Ai, Impmon was already able to evolve into his Ultimate form, so it probably didn't affect her.

Ranma was obviously injured. The front of her shirt was torn open and he could see some dried blood on the exposed skin. Her skin looked slightly burned but he could see it healing before his eyes. Ranma always had been impressive.

Ranma coughed and opened her eyes, looking around the collapsed building. When her eyes fell on Jenrya, she smiled.

"You're okay..." Her eyes widened. "Wait, where's Salamon and Terriermon?"

"They're out there, trying to hold off that big digimon."

"SkullTyrannomon." Ranma idly said and then did a double-take. "Wait, how are they holding it off?

Jenrya shook his head. "Salamon did something she called the 'Saotome Final Attack' and then just ran from it."

"When did she...?" Ranma shook her head. "Never mind... as they are now, it's not going to work, but I think I might know how we can get them to evolve. The dark energy might be preventing them from evolving so I'm going to get rid of it."

Jenrya blinked. Well, it sounded like Ranma, even if the voice was more a soprano than a tenor. Still, he wanted to see what Ranma had planned. "How exactly are you going to do that?"

Ranma pulled a card out from her deck pouch and showed it to Jenrya. "With this."

The card read, "Holy Ring Activation."

* * *

Salamon ran, knowing Terriermon would follow. She didn't quite know the area, but she knew she had to get SkullTyrannomon away from the building Ranma was in. And Jenrya too, she supposed.

She turned around a corner, leading away from the canal. They could double back on the next corner, she was sure of it.

Terriermon, beside her, panted as he kept up. "This was your plan? Piss it off and run away?"

"It's working isn't it?" Salamon was grateful that the speed boost hadn't worn off yet. It and the head start they got from the Perfect's confusion was what was letting them outpace the nearly three-story-tall digimon.

"Yeah, but... how are we supposed to deal with it?" Terriermon had a point, and Salamon knew it.

"Working on that." Actually, she was having faith that her Tamer had a plan; she just needed time to wake up.

"Great, just great, we're dead..." Terriermon groaned.

"What was it that you say to everyone? Momentai!" Salamon glanced back over her shoulder. Yep. She could hear SkullTyrannomon stomping after them.

The pair ran a bit longer, curving around once more. "The canal! We can jump over the canal and onto some of the ice that Seadramon left... And then once it follows us, we head back off and it'll collapse into the water."

"Salamon!" Ranma's voice echoed in the digimon's ears.

"Ranma?" Salamon looked around... Oh! She must be using the D-Ark. Salamon had almost forgotten about that function of the digivice. She blinked and her eyes took on a silvery sheen, indicating an uplink between her and the digivice. "Ranma, you're awake!"

Terriermon nodded. "Jian just let me know."

"Right, Salamon, I know how we can improve you two's odds against that thing. You need to get to the highest possible point nearby." Ranma sounded like she knew what she was doing. Salamon loved it when that happened.

"Okay! Come on, Terriermon, we're going up!" Salamon leaped onto a fence ledge and then an awning for a storefront. From there, she bounded up window ledges to get to the roof where she was shortly joined by the other child digimon. "We're here, now what?"

Back just outside the collapsed building, Ranma smirked and prepared the card. "CARD SLASH!" She swiped it. "HOLY RING ACTIVATION!"

The golden ring around Salamon's neck glowed brightly with a holy light which spread throughout the digital field. There was no nook nor cranny untouched by the ring's light, and it even managed to reach the edge of the digital field. The darkness of the field shattered and the light faded.

* * *

Calumon watched the giant glowy black digital field from afar. It was too scary to get up close, and something told me that he didn't want to be too near it lest he get sucked in. He was a bit worried about whoever might be inside the field. Were they okay? What kind of digimon made a digital field so dark? So evil?

Then like night into day, the field brightened to a brilliant white. Joy leapt in his heart! The darkness was gone, and he couldn't help but glow. If the special child digimon had a mirror, he would notice the inverted triangle on his forehead shining a brilliant red.

* * *

EVOLUTION

Salamon and Terriermon began to glow as the effects of cards swiped some time ago finally went through.

"Salamon shinka!" Salamon shifted from a quadrupedal canine form to a bipedal form that had a feline head. The holy ring around its neck moved down to its tail which snaked out, gaining purple and white alternating stripes with a tuft of purple fur at the end. Its ears pointed into feline ears which also gained tufts of purple fur. Gloves with clawed tips formed around what were its forward paws before and now were its hands. "Gatomon!"

"Terriermon shinka!" Terriermon grew to about double its size and its arms and legs lengthened. Jeans formed around its legs and its arms gained a Gatling gun-like casing around each of them. Red war paint decorated its larger form and it whipped a bandoleer around its bare chest. "Gargomon!"

Gatomon smirked. "Well, I think we might have a bit more of a chance now, eh Gargomon?"

"Yep, that ugly skeleton won't know what hit him." Gargomon nodded to the smaller adult digimon.

"Be careful, the both of you. Jenrya and I will get to a decent location so we can help with cards as needed." Ranma said through her link with Gatomon.

"Momentai!" Gargomon said. "We'll be able to handle it, you stay safe."

"GROUND ZERO BUSTER!" Gargomon and Gatomon jumped away in the nick of time, dodging the explosion caused by SkullTyrannomon's attack. It still stood taller than them, at about five times Gargomon's height. Gatomon refused to let herself be afraid though. She was an adult, not a child, and this thing would feel the wrath of her claws.

"Neko Punch!" Gatomon dashed at the Perfect and once she was close, she clawed at the bone there. She could feel some of it flake off with her scratches, but not nearly enough.

"Gatling Arm!" A hail of bullets came from the Vulcan cannons on Gargomon's arms, leaving a trail of impacts on SkullTyrannomon's skeleton. When the dust cleared, it was clear that some damage had been done, but not enough to be catastrophic.

Gatomon landed down next to Gargomon. "Well, we're able to scratch him. Death by paper cuts?"

Gargomon shook his head. "That's gonna take a lot of paper cuts."

The two separated again to dodge an incoming Ground Zero Buster. One benefit seemed to be that the explosion had a short range. Only thirty feet or so, and they could clear that easily. Gatomon landed on a ledge, while Gargomon had landed on a wide fence.

Gatomon knew she had to go at it again. She leaped at SkullTyrannomon and kicked at its skull. "Neko Kick!" She followed it up by digging her claws in. "Neko Punch! Revised! Saotome Style Combination!"

The feline digimon erupted in a series of kicks and clawed punches all to the side of SkullTyrannomon's skull... and she was rewarded with a swat from the larger digimon's arm which sent her flying back twenty feet.

Of course, after she went flying, Gargomon followed up her combination with an attack of his own. "DUM DUM UPPER!" The rabbitlike digimon drove a bullet-powered uppercut into SkullTyrannomon's chin, knocking it backward a bit.

"Cursed Destroyer!" SkullTyrannomon's right arm's forearm opened up and ejected a marrow missile encased in dark energy at Gargomon.

"Card Slash! WarGreymon Brave Shield!" Jenrya's voice echoed out nearby and the shield formed in front of Gargomon, blocking the attack. He and Ranma had arrived on the roof of a nearby building.

"Thanks Jian!" Gargomon called out as he lowered the shield, holding it with his left hand. Gatomon managed to climb to her feet nearby.

Up on the roof, Ranma assessed the situation. Two Adult digimon versus one Perfect was still highly unfavorable odds, especially one with unknown capabilities. Still, it was fairly obvious that SkullTyrannomon was linked with dark or unholy energy, and that would be the key to its defeat.

_If this doesn't work, I have one last absurdly stupid thing I can try_. Ranma thought as she looked down at Gatomon and tried not to think about how catlike her partner was. Gatomon was a digimon, not a cat. "Jenrya, here!"

Ranma tossed a card to her fellow Tamer who caught it by instinct. He looked at it and raised an eyebrow. "This is your plan?"

"Well, that and we work together with them." Ranma replied.

Ranma pulled out her own card and readied it at the same time as Jenrya. Their voices echoed in unison. "CARD SLASH!"

Ranma continued, "Angewomon: Holy Arrow!"

Jenrya finished, "MagnaAngemon: Sword of Promised Victory!"

The data now read, Gatomon looked up from her distraction of the Perfect and smirked. Gargomon now held a glowing purple broadsword in his right hand and a shield in his left.

Gatomon couldn't help but snark. "I thought Guilmon was the one supposed to turn into a knight."

Gargomon replied, "I don't know, I feel all heroic all of the sudden."

Ranma shook her head at their banter. "Right, let's finish them off..." The martial artist's actions mirrored perfectly her digimon partner's as she gripped her digivice.

Jenrya nodded. "We'll start it off..." He gripped his own, and as he raised it, Gargomon raised the sword perfectly in sync. "EX..."

Gargomon's voice echoed in unison with his tamer's. "CALIBUR!"

Ranma did much the same with her partner, only she drew her digivice back as if she were drawing a bow, and a bow and arrow made of holy light formed in Gatomon's hands. "HOLY..."

Gatomon finished together with her tamer, "ARROW!"

A beam of golden light came from Gatomon's bow, and a wave of purple and gold energy came from the sword in Gargomon's hand. The two attacks intermingled and struck SkullTyrannomon right in its digital core and then the energy blew through the back of the massive digimon. The Perfect fell to one knee and flickered... and then it exploded into data which dissipated before Gatomon and Gargomon could even think about downloading it.

The digital field began to fade away and the sky was visible again.

* * *

Ranma smiled. They'd won. As the adrenaline left her, she was as a puppet with strings cut, but Jenrya swiftly moved to support her. That fight had taken a lot out of her, and she'd poured a lot of energy into that last attack, feeding it to Gatomon.

Speaking of the Adult digimon, she could feel her partner approaching with Gargomon. She turned to look at her and a familiar fear started to well up within. No. She would not be afraid of her digimon partner. No matter how much she looked like one of those... c... She couldn't even finish that thought in her mind.

Ranma coughed and then spat the mixture of bile and blood out of her mouth.

"Ranma, we need to get you to the hospital." Jenrya accepted what happened without any questions, though she knew he had to have some.

"No hospital, but there's a doctor nearby who can help." Ranma smiled at Jenrya and then frowned as she looked down at her shirt. "Why is it they always destroy my shirt?"

Gatomon ran up to Ranma. "Ranma, you're hurt... I'm sorry..."

Ranma shook her head. "Don't worry about it, Gatomon... I've been worse off."

Jenrya looked around the roof and found the fire escape. "Well, let's get you to that doctor of yours then."

With a little help from both digimon, Jenrya managed to get Ranma off the top of the building, and then Gargomon picked her up. It was a good thing too, as Ranma could barely stand on her own. The fight with the DarkTyrannomon and then SkullTyrannomon had to have caused some internal injuries, and she was just drained overall. She had done her best to take the energy strain off of Gatomon from using an attack from her Perfect form by pouring her own ki through the D-Ark. At least she'd stopped bleeding.

"Dr. Tofu's office is just down this way." Ranma pointed and Gargomon walked. Gatomon walked a little ahead of Gargomon, probably so she could keep an eye on her.

"So... Ranma, why are you now a girl?" Well, she knew someone was going to ask that question.

"Gargomon!" Jenrya sounded scandalized, but she bet that he wanted to ask too. It wasn't that often that you got to see one of your old friends turn into a cute girl. Well, it wasn't that often if you didn't live in Nerima.

"Ranma has a Jusen-something curse... She changes with water. Cold makes Ranma a girl, hot a boy." Gatomon spoke up.

"Jusenkyo, and you can blame Pop for that. It was his idea to train at the training ground, and he knocked me into the cursed spring." Ranma couldn't muster up the normal disgust she had for it. While she was a guy, she honestly didn't exactly care about the form she was in. Well, not much anyway. She liked being a guy more as that was what she was used to, and people treated her different as a girl. Still, if they were going to treat her different, she might as well exploit that. She was certain if she were a guy right now, she'd be walking while leaning on Gargomon rather than being carried.

Gatomon patted her on the shoulder and it took nearly all of Ranma's willpower to not flinch in fear. Stupid Neko-ken. This was never a problem before they left Shinjuku.

* * *

They arrived at the Ono clinic after a little more walking. Their battle hadn't been far from there. Walking in the clinic, Gatomon couldn't help but notice all the people staring at her and Gargomon. Ranma was injured, and these old humans were staring.

"What's the matter? Never seen a digimon before?" Gatomon shook her head and turned back toward Ranma. Something was bothering her tamer, and it wasn't just her injuries. She couldn't help but notice that Ranma was avoiding looking at her even when she talked to her. She'd have to find out why. She almost sensed a flicker of fear when Ranma looked at her.

Gatomon was so focused on her thoughts that she almost didn't notice the weight on her shoulder. She looked to see what was there... A skeletal hand! She jumped and landed between Ranma and the thing! She would not let Ranma get hurt further! She would take out the skeleton before it could hurt her tamer more!

"Easy now, that was just a little prank, there's no need to take it out on Betty." Gatomon blinked and looked just behind the human skeleton, and there was a human man dressed in black scrubs. He had brown hair in a thin ponytail and wore a pair of thin wireframe glasses. She wasn't so sure she trusted him. "So, you two are digimon, huh? I suppose the two with you are the humans you work with."

Why was he smiling? Didn't he know just how close Gatomon was to using him as a scratching post?

"Are you Doctor Tofu?" Jenrya asked and the man nodded. "We have someone here who's injured."

And then he stepped aside, revealing Ranma in Gargomon's arms. She was still conscious and waved weakly at the doctor. Gatomon wasn't so sure she trusted this human, but she did trust Ranma.

"Ranma! Okay, bring him into my examination room." Well, it seemed like the man did know Ranma after all. Gargomon brought the girl into the room, and Gatomon began to follow. "I can only have one other person in there with him."

"Ranma's my partner, Doctor, and I'm not leaving her." Gatomon stepped in with Gargomon.

"Momentai, Gatomon, I'll wait outside with Jian once I put her down." Gargomon placed Ranma down on the examination table with care, sliding his Vulcan cannons out from under the pig-tailed girl. He then walked out of the examination room and the Doctor shut the door before turning toward his patient.

* * *

Oh boy, he was glad that was over. Big digital fields out of nowhere were scaaary things. The last time he ran into one of those... actually, he didn't remember much about it. It probably wasn't all that important, but digital fields were definitely bad, and that one was very bad with its black stuff. At least it was gone now. Now he could continue to explore and try to have fun!

Sure he didn't know where he was, but that was part of it. Calumon floated from roof to roof, looking around. Oh hey! That place had a tall wall!

He was going to climb it. Well, float up it. It wasn't like it was hard to scale things when you could fly. Maybe they had food there. His poor tummy was rumbling. He hadn't eaten in like fifteen minutes. Puff balls on a stick. He loved those.

Calumon perched on top of the wall. There was a funny looking human on the other side holding what looked like a long stick. He was wearing some sort of blue and black robe thing with baggy pants. Wait, he remembered what that was called! He saw it in a movie with Juri! It was a hakama! Samurai wore those! Calumon was seeing a real live samurai!

Oh, how cool would it be to be a samurai? Calumon couldn't help but picture it. He'd be walking down the road dressed up in a perfectly tailored hakama.

He'd have his own sword dragging out behind him. He'd see people having a problem and he'd go, "Hey you, I am the great samurai Calumon-sama! Don't bother that person! Unless you want to face my blade!"

He'd draw the sword and get into a nice fighting position like this. "Back you fiend, I, the great Calumon-sama will defeat you! HIII YAAAA!"

With a swing of his blade, he'd slay the evildoers and be the best samurai in the world. HIYA! HOO WAA! KII YAA!

"HII-oop!" Calumon slipped from his perch and tumbled down the side of the wall to bump into the samurai person. "Ack! Sorry!"

The human peered down at him. "Hum. A strange creature."

"Hi! I'm Calumon! Are you a Samurai?" Calumon retracted his ears and looked up at the human.

"Ha! A Digimon! Surely something as adorable as you is not a minion of the foul sorcerer! I am Tatewaki Kunou, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High!" Thunder seemed to crash in the background at that proclamation. "And yes, I am a noble samurai!"

"Oh... so cool! I never got to meet a Samurai before, what are you doing here?"

"I am training so that I may finally beat the foul sorcerer and break the spell that ensnares my loves!"

"Your... loves?" Calumon cocked his head.

"Yes! My fierce tigress Akane Tendou and the pig-tailed girl! Join me, Calumon, and we can beat the foul sorcerer together!"

Okay... Calumon wasn't entirely certain about this samurai. Maybe he wasn't as nice as awesome as he seemed. "Umm... I'm not exactly a fighting kind of digimon! Maybe you would have better luck with another digimon!"

Calumon took to the air. "I'll maybe come by and see you later! Good luck!"

"So you reveal yourself as a minion of the sorcerer after all!" Tatewaki turned toward Calumon and raised his stick high.

"I'm out of here!" Calumon flew over the wall. That person was scary!

* * *

Damn that traffic. He knew as he was driving that he'd be too late one way or the other, but on the off-chance that he could be of some help, he drove to Nerima. Yamaki wasn't even halfway there when he got the call from Onodera.

The kids had managed to pull a victory out of nowhere, without his help. However, one of them got hurt in the process. Li was fine and so was his digimon, but it was Saotome that had gotten hurt. Saotome was a name he hadn't heard in six years. Saotome Genma had done janitorial work at the HYPNOS building, never actually seeing the detailed work that went on inside until the D-Reaper attacked. He was the father of Saotome Ranma.

The younger Saotome had been an eager child, and like the rest of the Tamers, Ranma took to having a digimon well. However, after the defeat of the D-Reaper and the return of the digimon to the digital world, Genma had resigned at HYPNOS and he and his son had disappeared. Yamaki hadn't kept on the lookout for the pair as Ranma's digimon partner did not return from the digital world with the others, almost as if she knew that Ranma wouldn't be there.

Now it seemed that Ranma lived in Nerima and had gotten hurt in a fight with a digimon. He owed it to the Saotome boy to at least see how bad the injuries were. It was his job to keep digimon contained and away from the general public if possible, after all.

He parked his car down the street from the Ono clinic and locked it once he got out. The prototype was in the trunk, and while it had a special lock on it, he didn't want anyone attempting to access it when it happened. He pocketed his lighter, making sure it rested neatly in the pocket before going inside.

He was spotted as soon as he entered the clinic by that overgrown rabbit of a digimon, Gargomon. Odds are it'd turn back into its Child form soon enough, but Li had it running around as an Adult, likely a result of the previous fight.

"Oh hey, Jian, it's Yamaki-san." Gargomon obviously was talking to Li who was sitting next to him. The boy was wearing an orange vest and jeans today. How original.

The boy stood up and walked over to him. "Yamaki-san, what are you doing here?"

"I'd heard that you were having a bit of trouble with the wild ones you were apprehending, and judging from where we are, you might be lucky it wasn't worse." Yamaki wouldn't let him know that he was worried. He never liked sending kids out to do this job, but they were good at it.

"Yeah, we did get lucky. I don't know what we'd have done if Ranma hadn't been there. I couldn't biomerge with Terriermon and Matrix Evolution didn't work. For a while there, even regular evolution didn't work." Li looked at his digimon.

"Ootori said something about an energy based Faraday Cage, that would have blocked any electro-magnetic signal from getting through, including that of evolution if it needed to come through from outside." In an official situation, he'd be professional.

"That makes sense, after that dark aura thing was cleared away by Salamon, she and I evolved to Adults." Gargomon was grinning.

"So if Saotome and his partner hadn't been there, it would have been worse." Yamaki stated.

"Momentai! We all dealt with everything okay and..." Looks like Gargomon ran out of energy to maintain that form. Good. The child form was easier to deal with. Smaller. "And Ranma's fine now, she's with the doctor. He'll take care of her."

"I'll have to have a talk with Saotome myself. In the meantime, we can wait. Good work, you two." Give credit where credit is due. The two had managed to defeat something that normally wouldn't have been out of their league, but at this point it was due to unforeseen circumstances.

Wait a minute... _her_?

* * *

Inside the examination room, Ranma was laying on the table as Doctor Tofu took a good look at her. Gatomon wasn't quite sure how much she trusted this doctor as he wanted to keep her out of here. Ranma was her partner. She needed to make sure that he was safe.

"Please stay over there, miss... Gatomon..." The doctor had said as he started work on Ranma. He had opened her shirt and began cleaning the front of her body. "Hmm... lacerations, but these look like they're from actual claws as opposed to Mousse getting a lucky hit in on you, Ranma-kun."

"They're from a digimon that we ended up fighting... DarkTyrannomon. It had these big claws... It didn't hit me too hard." Ranma said.

"The lacerations _are_ shallow, what I'm more worried about is your back and low ki right now." Gatomon didn't know what the doctor meant there, but he pressed his fingers onto Ranma's back in several areas... and Ranma closed her eyes falling asleep.

Gatomon spread her claws. The doctor obviously did something that hurt Ranma. Nobody got to hurt her if she could help it! "You hurt Ranma!"

"No, I just put him to sleep so I could finish getting him in order so he could walk... without seeing you and becoming frightened." The doctor sounded sincere... but he had hurt Ranma, hadn't he?

"Why would Ranma be scared seeing me? He was fine earlier..." Gatomon questioned.

"Ranma has a severe fear of cats resulting from some childhood trauma." Doctor Tofu looked over Gatomon, studying her. "And you greatly resemble that which he fears."

"But he never had any trouble with me before, and she seemed fine on the way here..." Gatomon couldn't believe it. She wasn't exactly a cat, but Ranma couldn't be scared of her.

The doctor began doing something with Ranma before turning her over and bandaging up the cuts on her chest. He tapped a few more points on Ranma's neck and nodded. "It may have been adrenaline or focus on the fight... the only way to know would be to ask Ranma when he comes around in a few minutes."

Gatomon stood by the examination table and when she heard Ranma shift, she smiled. "Ranma! You're awake!"

Ranma groaned. "Did you have to knock me out, Doc? I'd have been fine if you'd done the work with me awake."

"I didn't want to chance you lapsing into the Neko-Ken in the middle of an examination due to your digimon friend here." Doctor Tofu explained.

"Neko-ken? What's that?" It sounded like a digimon attack... sorta. She had something that was "Neko Punch" which could have been something just like this.

"Gatomon isn't one of those things, Doc. She's a digimon, no matter what she looks like. And she's my partner. I'm not scared of my partner unless I picture her as something else... And the Neko-Ken is a stupid martial arts technique my old man taught me, Gatomon. It don't even work right." Ranma looked right at her, and while she was sure he was holding back some fear, it wasn't quite of her, she didn't think.

Doctor Tofu shook his head. "Your father, Ranma, is sometimes..."

"Pop can get a little single-minded in his training ideas. The Neko-Ken was no exception. I just wish he had read through the entire manual before deciding to start me on the training... maybe I wouldn't..." Ranma shuddered.

"Wait, what does the Neko-Ken have to do with being scared of cats?" Gatomon wasn't sure she followed.

"To train someone in the Neko-Ken, you have to dig a pit. And you fill it with... cats, and you don't feed them for a few days." Ranma began, and Gatomon could already tell she wouldn't like where this is going. Those poor kitties. "The trainee is then tied up and wrapped up in fish sausage. He or she is then thrown into the pit. This is repeated until the trainee learns the technique."

Wait... what? "Uncle... Genma did this to you? When?" Gatomon was going to have to have a talk with Uncle Genma. That was something that shouldn't have happened at all.

"Yeah, Pop did. To be fair to the old man, he was following a training manual and really thought it would make me a better martial artist. Unfortunately he didn't read the entire thing and find out that 'only an idiot would teach this technique.' And it happened about three months after we left Shinjuku. I was missing you pretty bad around then..." Ranma smiled at Gatomon.

Okay, Uncle Genma deserved something. He made Ranma scared of cats. Nearly scared of _her_, but Ranma loved her father, and Gatomon knew it. So Gatomon would just have to let him know her displeasure without doing anything permanent. "Okay... At least you aren't scared of me..."

"Well, not entirely. You're a digimon, which is different enough though my backup plan for dealing with SkullTyrannomon was to use the Neko-Ken if you and Gargomon weren't enough to defeat it." Ranma scratched the base of her pigtail nervously. "You're still my partner though."

Doctor Tofu turned to Ranma at this point. "Well Ranma, you should be able to walk now, though you will need support. I suggest you lean on your friend who came in with you... I also have a spare shirt here. You need to go get some good food to replace some of the energy you have lost."

Ranma nodded. "Okay... you'll add this to our account?"

Doctor Tofu nodded. "You're good to go."

* * *

Yamaki hadn't been in the clinic that long, maybe six minutes or so, before the door to the examination room slid open. First out of the room was Gatomon, and if he recalled correctly, that was Saotome's partner. It would make sense if Saotome was injured for his partner to come in with him to make sure that the doctor was treating him okay.

Behind the Gatomon, supported by the man Yamaki could only assume was the doctor was a young woman dressed in dark pants and a red shirt that looked to be made of silk. Her hair was the same color as he remembered Saotome's to be, but it was fairly obvious that the girl was female. To be fair, Saotome was ten when he last saw the child. It was entirely possible that Saotome Ranma was actually a girl. He wouldn't put it past Genma to try to pass off a female child as a son. Still, he was unsure.

The girl seemed to recognize him when she looked out in the examination room, and Li's movement indicated that at the least, this girl was probably Saotome. Li went up to help support her and the digimon came over to him.

"Yamaki-san, what are you doing here?" Gatomon seemed to be a bit more mature than Terriermon or his evolution. Of course, that could just be personal bias.

"I'm here because of the digimon attack earlier. You and your tamer did a good job of handling it, but I was on my way here to be backup." Yamaki considered standing, but that would put his eye level above that of Gatomon's and put hers at a very vulnerable area. He remained sitting. "I'd heard that Saotome was injured."

"Yeah, Ranma got hurt trying to protect Jenrya from SkullTyrannomon. When we weren't able to evolve, it decided to try and get rid of us ahead of time. Ranma was able to keep us from being hurt by its attacks." If Gatomon was telling the truth, Yamaki would have to look at Saotome in a new light. Of course, digimon rarely lied... at least the ones with human partners anyway.

"Speaking of Saotome, where is he?" Yamaki needed to speak to him.

"Ranma's right over there, being transferred to Jenrya's shoulders... She can't walk that well on her own just yet. The doctor says she'll be fine after she gets some food in her though." Gatomon shook her head like she didn't believe what she was saying.

Of course, a glance at the girl now being helped by Li gave him pause. That was Saotome? "I thought that Saotome Ranma was a young man."

"I _am_ a guy, Yamaki-san. This is just a cursed form given by Jusenkyo. Cold water makes me into a girl, hot water into a guy. Though, it makes me into a pretty hot girl, doesn't it?" The girl's voice, despite her injury exuded confidence.

Yamaki glanced over the girl. He supposed she could be considered cute under the right circumstances, but she was obviously underage despite her generous assets. "Saotome, if that is who you really are, you are sixteen. You are too young for me to even dignify that question with a response. However, you managed to help out my agent today, thank you."

Saotome looked to the person she was leaning on, and while Li's cheeks were turning red, she didn't comment on that. Saotome only raised an eyebrow and asked, "Agent? When did you start working for Yamaki-san, Jenrya?"

"When we turned about thirteen, Yamaki-san was able to give us an internship at HYPNOS that mostly involved payment for dealing with digimon who were a threat to public safety. Some of us also got to go see how the interior of the system works. It's really cool." Despite the admittedly reasonably attractive girl on his shoulder, Li managed to answer well enough. His father would be proud of him.

"Ah... I'll take your word for that. So, did you just stick around to say that, Yamaki-san?" Saotome asked.

Yamaki shook his head. "No. You were injured in a digimon fight which you involved yourself in without authorization. However, you are a free agent being a digimon tamer who just managed to get your partner back. HYPNOS will be paying for your doctor's fees, and I will need to get further authorization for anything more. Where are you living currently?"

"The Tendou dojo here in Nerima... it's only a few blocks away." Saotome answered.

"Thank you. Once the authorization comes through, I will likely meet you there with some paperwork. It shouldn't take longer than a week or two." Yamaki offered Saotome one of his rare smiles. He would probably have to talk with Saotome's father, but the girl would be getting a job offer.

Saotome nodded and smiled. "See you then, Yamaki-san."

Yamaki was unsure about this curse business. However, one did not get to be commanding officer of a department that dealt with digital monsters by being a skeptic. Until he saw something proving or disproving Saotome's assertion, he would give the girl the benefit of the doubt. After he dismissed the group, he would go talk with the doctor to arrange payment. It was the least he could do.

* * *

It really was nice to be with friends who had no expectations of her again. Ranma hadn't realized how much she missed being with friends from Shinjuku until this moment. Jenrya wasn't a fiancée or a rival, and he was helping her walk even though she was injured. Yeah, she'd prefer to be a guy right now, but the Doc said that she needed some time for her body to recuperate before changing. She didn't want to be out of the next fight because she didn't listen to the Doc.

Speaking of Doctor's orders, Ranma pondered over where to go. The Nekohanten wouldn't be a bad choice, but she really wasn't in the mood for Ramen. Plus Ranma wasn't exactly in any condition to fight Mousse and protect her friends if the blind duck tried anything. Best choice would be Ucchan's then. Okonomiyaki was delicious, and Ucchan deserved to meet some of her other friends who weren't related to the mess that Pop set up.

"Doc said I need to eat to help get my energy back, Jenrya." Ranma commented.

"This is your home, where should we head?" Jenrya was blushing. Well, something he had in common with Ryouga then. Lucky for Jenrya she didn't like to take advantage of her friends. If it were a fight though, all bets were off.

"I know a good Okonomiyaki place. The owner's a friend of mine; she'll probably give a discount." She'd also probably give Ranma her meal free. One of the best reasons to go there was the good food with the good chef and the good price. "It's just down this street up here. Okonomiyaki Ucchan's."

"Right, let's go." Jenrya continued to help her down the road.

Ranma glanced down at the digimon nearby and nearly burst out laughing at the sight. Terriermon sat on Gatomon's shoulders like a child would on their parent, and he seemed to be playing with her ears. "Everything alright down there?"

"Hmm? Momentai! We're having lots of fun here!" Terriermon continued stroking Gatomon's ears.

Gatomon snorted and her ears twitched. "Yeah, we're okay, Ranma. What's Okonomiyaki?"

"Oh, it's awesome; you'll have to see it when we get it. And this person is the best Okonomiyaki chef in all of Japan." Ranma said as they stepped inside the door.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that praise, sugar. Here I was thinking I might not see you today." The chef behind the grill was a brown-haired girl with a bow in her hair and a huge spatula on her back.

Ranma smiled at her best friend. "Hey Ucchan, how's business?"

"Lunch rush was rather high today. You came in at just the right time, Ranchan with your friend... and... What the heck are those things?" Ukyo pointed her giant spatula at Terriermon and Gatomon. Maybe it was a good thing that Terriermon had reverted.

"Hey! We are not _things_! We're Digimon!" Terriermon said from his perch before leaping up to the counter. "I'm Terriermon and this is Gatomon. And that's Jian, but he's not a digimon, he's my tamer."

Jenrya for his part face palmed and muttered, "I think it was obvious that I'm not a digimon, Terriermon."

"You never know. She doesn't know what a digimon is, and we've been around for about six years and been on the news and everything! She must have been hiding under a rock or something." Terriermon cartwheeled across the counter.

Ucchan didn't seem to know what to make of Terriermon, but she responded. "I was so focused on training to beat Ranma and his father the past ten years that I didn't focus on much beyond that and school."

"Beat Ranma? I thought she was your friend... Why would you want to beat up your friend?" Terriermon was now doing a handstand on his ears.

"Because he is my fiancé and he left me behind!" Ukyo exclaimed and Ranma winced. She hadn't told Gatomon about that yet.

"I thought Akane-san was Ranma's fiancée, though they don't really want it to happen." Gatomon spoke up.

"Pop engaged me to Ucchan too. And then there's Shampoo, but let's not talk about her for now. Ucchan, meet my friends, Li Jenrya, his mouthy partner Terriermon, and my partner Gatomon. We just got done with a big fight and the Doc said I need to eat, and I know the digimon need to eat too. Can we get a round of specials, please? Also, everyone, this is my best friend from when I was little, also my cute fiancée, Kuonji Ukyo." Ranma needed to flatter her before she decided to wallop Terriermon for not keeping his mouth shut.

Luckily, it seemed to be working. Ukyo nodded. While Jenrya helped Ranma to a seat, he bowed his head. "It's nice to meet you, Kuonji-san, and I'm sorry for Terriermon. Sometimes he doesn't know when to shut up."

"Hey!" Terriermon turned toward Jenrya using his ears, still staying in the handstand position. "Mo-men-tai, Jian. Momentai! Ukyo here is Ranma's friend, and she wouldn't do anything!"

Ukyo shook her head. "Four Ranchan specials coming up, and want any hot water, Ranchan?"

Ranma smiled. "Thanks for the offer, but the Doc said that I should probably stay a girl for the rest of the day. I'll change back before bed. Plus I'm a bit lighter as a girl, so Jenrya doesn't have as much trouble helping me around, but hopefully he won't need to after your food is in me."

"Yeah, it's no trouble to help you, Ranma." Jenrya commented. "But I probably should be heading home in a bit."

Ranma nodded. "Right. Well, maybe if digimon are going to pop up here more, you should spend some more time over here. It's about three weeks before school starts back up again, and I'm sure there's a place you can stay while you're here."

"I'll think about it." Jenrya smiled.

"So Ranma, why do you have more than one fiancée? Aren't you supposed to only get one who you want to marry after deciding who you love is the best person to be with? Do you have an evil twin somewhere whose child you are carrying and was turned into a vampire?" Terriermon asked.

"Uh... The answer to the first question is that it's mostly Pop's fault. He got hungry and promised that I'd marry someone in exchange for food, and he also had that engagement with the Tendou family too. Ucchan's one of the few who stuck around. And I'd been saying since we got here that I don't want to marry _anyone_ yet. We're not even out of school yet, but I have three girls who are here with obligations." Ranma spoke rather low. She didn't want to get Ucchan angry, and reminding her about the other girls and her own opinion on the situation was one way to have that happen. "... and evil twin? Where are you getting this from Terriermon?"

"Well, when Jian is at school all day, sometimes I watch TV and there's some shows with weird things happening on them..." Terriermon shrugged.

After that, Ukyo came over with four plates of Okonomiyaki, laying them down in front of each customer. "Here you go: four Ranchan specials. So Ranchan, what does having a digimon partner mean?"

"It means that I am together with someone who is my best friend, and we fight alongside each other. And that we can do a lot together. Jenrya and Terriermon can fuse into a single digimon... or at least they could. That didn't seem to work today." Ranma gestured to the other pair. Gatomon had started eating.

"Momentai... we'll do it again, I'm sure of it. We just need to figure out why it happened." Terriermon said and then took a bite of his meal. "Oh, this is good, Ukyo! Thank you!"

"I bet I am the first okonomiyaki chef to cook for digimon." Ukyo smiled with pride. "Wait, Ranchan you said best friend?"

"Ah... Human best friend meet digimon best friend?" Ranma scratched the base of her pigtail and laughed a little nervously.

"Oh... Ranchan..." Ukyo shook her head.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Jenrya had dropped the pair off at the Tendou dojo, and Ranma went to lie down as she still wasn't feeling all that well. Gatomon decided that she needed to have a little bit of a talk with Uncle Genma. He put Ranma through so much, and she needed to make sure he knew just how she felt about that. Of course, she still respected the man as he had taught her some.

When she got to the living room, she saw Uncle Genma playing some board game with Akane's father. She walked up and took a look at it before looking to Uncle Genma's face.

"Excuse me, Uncle Genma; can I please talk to you outside?"

"Ah, Gatomon?" Genma looked over at her. "You needed to evolve today and haven't reverted yet?"

"Ranma pushed through a bunch of energy at me. I should revert soon though. Still, can we talk outside?" Gatomon did not want to do this discussion in front of Akane's father.

"I suppose. Tendou, we will continue when I get back." Genma stated.

"Of course, Saotome, feel free to walk off as you are losing." Akane's father prodded.

"I'll beat you when I get back." Genma stood up and walked over to the shoji, opening it and gesturing for Gatomon to go first. She did, and Genma followed her, closing it behind him. "So, Gatomon what did you want to talk about?"

She respected the man, and she even liked Ranma's father a bit. However, she needed to discuss what happened. "Ranma and I went around today and met up with another old friend or two of his, and during this time I learned quite a bit about how Ranma's life was without me. It seems like you had a rather eventful time training him."

"Yes, and the boy took to the training like a fish to water, even if he's not as perfect as I want him to be about it." Genma stated with confidence.

"Right, and Uncle Genma, I want you to know that I love you like family and respect you very much." She stretched out her hands, wiggling her claws a little bit. "So it brings me no joy to express my displeasure about the Neko-Ken."

* * *

Just outside the entrance to the Nerima Zoo that night, a small digital field expanded, barely enough to cover the parking lot. A swirling distortion in the air formed, creating a portal of some sort. The portal seemed to spit out two figures. One was human, dressed in shorts over a pair of khaki-colored pants and a grey shirt with a single shoulder pauldron on his right arm. The human also had a red scarf tied around his neck and had a gauntlet over his right arm. The second figure was a purple dragon-like digimon. Its arms and hands were clawed and it had bat-like wings.

"Well, Monodramon, we're back on Earth."

"Yeah, Ryo, it'll be good to see everyone again..."

* * *

Author's notes: This chapter is bigger than I had originally intended though not by much. I accomplished everything I intended on accomplishing in the chapter, and I think I handled it pretty well. The plot has started to be seen, and we've got quite a bit more to go. Thanks for reading.


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